Marina
Chisty
Media:
Painting

Studio Location:
43-01 22nd street Long Island City, 11101
Room/Studio#
303
Website:
Artist Bio:
Marina Chisty is a Russian-born, New York-based artist whose abstract paintings explore transformation, impermanence, and the agency of materials. She holds an MA in Economics from Fordham University and is currently pursuing her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her practice bridges analytical thinking and intuitive experimentation, working primarily with pigment, water, and charcoal to create compositions that echo erosion, sedimentation, and organic growth. Influenced by philosophies such as New Materialism and posthumanism, Chisty sees materials as active collaborators, shaping the work alongside her.
She has exhibited both in the U.S. and internationally. Marina is currently based in NYC, with a studio in Long Island City.
Artist Statement:
My practice centers on transformation—not only of materials, but of how change, continuity, and belonging are experienced through the lens of being a person in a constantly shifting world. There’s a tendency to believe certain things are stable—identity, environment, even the ground beneath one’s feet—yet everything is in flux, shifting gradually like erosion or rupturing without warning. My work embraces instability, creating space for uncertainty rather than resisting it.
Water and pigment are not just tools but collaborators. They move unpredictably, dispersing and settling in ways I cannot fully control. At the beginning of each painting, I relinquish control, allowing the materials to behave freely. Only later do I intervene, responding to what has emerged. This process mirrors how landscapes are formed—not through singular dramatic events, but through the accumulation of subtle, often imperceptible changes over time.
Painting holds a fundamental paradox: it captures movement while ultimately becoming still. My work engages with that tension. The resulting forms inhabit a liminal space between the personal and the universal—recalling patterns of erosion, geological formations, or cellular structures at both macro and micro scales. From afar, they suggest vast shifts in terrain; up close, the intricate interactions of pigment and water reveal the agency of the materials themselves.