Marissa’s practice centres on ecology, plants, and humanity's complex relationships with them. Inspired by her upbringing, travels, and residencies in remote wild locations, she explores a collective sense of belonging through the stories and colours of plants.
She forages for colour, creating dyes and pigments from plants collected on walks. This slow craft process lets her study plants uncovering their connections to human evolution and cosmologies. Influenced by seasons, location, and soil health, her work combines science and art, resulting in recipes and objects that reveal the metaphors embedded in plant relations.
As a cross-disciplinary artist, Marissa works across textiles, painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and sound. Drawing on esoteric philosophy, semiotics, myth, animism, and science, she focuses on trees as profound teachers of identity and humanity’s relationship with nature. Foraging, for her, is a sensory act, blending sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch into her work. Humour and the unconventional—like mask-making and storytelling—are also integral to her creative expression.
Sustainability and the origins of materials are central to her practice. Through slow craft, she cultivates a deep connection with plants and the non-human world. By engaging with local ecology—past, present, and future—Marissa seeks to inspire kinship, wonder, and awe.
Marissa Stoffer (b. Netherlands) is a cross-disciplinary artist and educator.
She studied MA Painting at the Royal College of Art (2023), and MA Fine Art (Combined History of Art and Painting) at the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh College of Art 2(014).
A W A R D S
Colart, Materials Award, 2020. Royal Scottish Academy Latmier Award, 2019. Hope Scott Trust, Bursary Award, 2018
Scottish Council and Creative Scotland, Edinburgh Visual Artist and Craft Makers Award, 2018. Creative Scotland, Open Funding, 2017. Royal Scottish Academy, Stuart Prize, 2015. Royal Scottish Academy, New Contemporaries Exhibition Award, 2015. Edinburgh College of Art, Art Collections Purchase Prize, 2014.Edinburgh College of Art, Graduate Studio Bursary prize, 2014
E X H I B I T I O N S
Wasteless 2 Material Journeys, University of East London, 2024. Voices From the Lea, Barge Fiodra, Canal River Trust, London, 2024.Even Poets Were Jealous of These, Vermillon Partners, London, 2023. Brink, 2030 Collective, RCA Hanger, London, 2023. Beneath The Burren, Burren College of Art, Ireland, 2023. The Landscape of One’s Own, Vermillon Partners, London, 2023. Lost Wax – For Lost Species, Barbican, London, 2022. Re-Connect, Society of Scottish Artists, Scotland, 2021. In Limbo¸ Rhubaba, Edinburgh, 2021. Utopias, SYN Festival, Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2019. Beyond Uncanny, San Roque Cambuza, Peru, 2018. Artists At Work, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2018. Odysseys, Syn Festival, Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2018. Metamorphosis-Transformation, SYN Festival Edinburgh, Out of the Blue, Edinburgh, 2017. Silence Awareness Existence, Arteles, Finland 2017. New Scottish Artists, Fleming Collection, London, 2015. The Royal Scottish Academy New Contemporaries, Edinburgh, 2015.
R E S I D E N C I E S
Qingcheng Mountain, Chengdu Region, UNESCO reserve, China, Vermilon Partners, 2024 (5 months Funded). Hinterlands mini-residency, River Lea, Canal River Trust, 2023 (Funded).Burren College of Art, Awarded by RCA, Ireland 2023. Art, Nature, Humanity, Marchmont House, 2021 (Funded). Numbershop, Caravana Grande, Micro residency, Scotland, Edinburgh Fringe, 2018. Sachaqa Centro De Art, Ecology: Pigments, Paper, and Ceramics, Peru, 2018. (Supported by Edinburgh Visual Artist and Craft Makers Award & Hope Scott Trust). Invererne, SkillShare, Scotland, 2017. Arteles, Silence Awareness Existence, Finland, 2017. (Supported by Creative Scotland - Open Project Funding.
W O R K S H O P S
Bespoke workshops developed by Marissa Stoffer called Foraging for Colour to tell the stories of plants (history, myth, folklore, and science) through guided walks and the craft of colour-making. These workshops differ from short guided one-off walks to five-day workshops learning foraging, colour making, and painting with botanical colours.
Partners include: Canal River Trust, Leith School of Art, Connecting Threads: River Tweed, and Great Place Falkirk.