Marisa Culatto was born in the Canary Islands and lives and works in the UK. She has spent the past decade working almost exclusively with digital photography preoccupied with pushing – and blurring – the boundaries of photography into the languages and practices usually associated with other mediums. Constraints, domesticity and daily rituals are at the centre of her practice. Culatto is also interested in the notion of reality being a construct, and, therefore, much of her work addresses contradictions, misperceptions and a degree of visual ambiguity. In addition, due to her ambivalent relationship with the photographic medium, she is interested in exploring photography itself as her subject. Lockdown had a big impact on Culatto’s practice, with her reincorporating paint, ink, markers and watercolour on paper, and recently combining all of these with photography. Culatto’s work has been exhibited extensively on the international stage, both in solo and group exhibitions. In 2011, she won the AlNorte Grant at the X National Contemporary Arts Week of Asturias, Spain. She was a finalist in the 2015–16 Contemporary Talents competition for the Fondation François Schneider, France; won the Juror’s Special Commendation at the XXI International Photography Prize Rafael Ramos García, Tenerife, Spain; and in 2017 was a finalist at the VIA Arts Prize, London. Her work features in numerous private collections around the world, including a piece that was acquired by the prestigious Soho House Collection for permanent display. Her body of work Flora was published by The Observer newspaper in August 2020, both online and in print.
