Last Words of a Shooting Star (in progress)
Butterfly Tattoo Portraits
We are Ugly but We Have the Music
Books
Collage
Commissions/Collaborations
Substack
Contact/Info
marisachafetz@gmail.com
@marischafetz
Bio
Marisa Chafetz (b. 1995) is a Long Island based photographer. She received her BFA in Photography from Tulane University in 2017. Working primarily with analog materials and processes, her work explores the threads that connect personal and communal histories, often weaving together staged and documentary approaches. Her images have been exhibited at Light Work, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and SF Camera Work, and have appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, W Magazine, Dazed, and i-D. In 2025, she published a two-person book, Whispers Against My Neck, with Pomegranate Press.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026 Pony, Earshot, New York NY
2026 Arcanite Pictures: Oracle in the Aperture, Light Work, Syracuse NY
2026 Breathless in Glowing Air, Rectangle Room at Primary Photographic, New York NY
2026 Seeing Desire, All Street Gallery, New York NY
2025 Breathless in Glowing Air, Kemp Gallery, Portland OR
2025 Breathless in Glowing Air, 1014 Gallery, London
2025 Out of the Dark, Delicia Studios, Brooklyn NY
2025 11th International Exhibition, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Providence RI
2025 Love, Photo Book Cafe, London
2023 Currents, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans LA
2021 Homecoming, James Art Center, New Smyrna Beach FL
2020 Fotofilmic18, The Reference, Seoul, South Korea
2019 Fotofilmic18, Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver BC, Canada
2019 Fotofilmic18, SF Camera Work, San Francisco CA
2019 Pin-Up, The Living Gallery Outpost, New York NY
2018 Negative Space III, Brooklyn Grain, Brooklyn NY
2018 Fotofilmic Solo's 2017-2018 Retrospective, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey BC
2018 Marisa Chafetz FOTOFILMIC SOLO II Juried by Alec Soth, Burrard Arts Foundation, Vancouver BC
2018 Motherhood Unveiled, Stitches and Pics, Sackets Harbor NY
2017 Pond Magazine Presents, Chinatown Soup, New York NY
2017 American Collective: Contemporary Reflections on Landscape and Identity, Stitches and Pics, Sackets Harbor NY
2017 Permeable Boundaries, OCH Gallery at Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Art Center, New Orleans LA
2017 RECOLLECTIONS, New Orleans Photo Alliance, New Orleans LA
2017 We are Ugly but We Have the Music, Carroll Gallery, New Orleans LA
Selected Press
2026 Dazed, “Whispers Against My Neck: These photos document the chaos of youth”
2025 Innovate Grant, “Interview: Marisa Chafetz’s Reconnection”
2024 Arcanite Pictures, “It’s Always Spring Break in Heaven”
2022 Booooooom, “Butterfly Tattoo Portraits by Photographer Marisa Chafetz”
2020 Booooooom, “We are Ugly but We Have the Music” by Photographer Marisa Chafetz”
2019 The New York Times, “What’s Happening to Us? A Visual History of 2019”
2019 Musée Magazine, “Photo Journal Monday: Marisa Chafetz”
2017 i-D, “intimate photos of falling in love in New Orleans”
2017 Fotofilmic, “FILM TALKS #32: MARISA CHAFETZ”
2017 Fotoroom, “We Are Ugly but We Have the Music — Marisa Chafetz Turns the Lens on Her Own Family”
2017 It's Nice That, “Photographer Marisa Chafetz’s filmic series revisits the beauty of her childhood”
2017 Lenscratch, “MARISA CHAFETZ: WE ARE UGLY BUT WE HAVE THE MUSIC”
2017 Fisheye Magazine, “Un été à New York: le récit de Marisa Chafetz”
2015 Dazed, “Is this what your childhood nights looked like?”
Awards
2025 Innovate Grant, Honorable Mention
2024 Athens Photo Festival, Shortlist
2017 FOTOFILMIC SOLO II, Winner, juried by Alec Soth
2017 The Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography, Grant Recipient
2017 Alberta "Rusty" Collier Memorial Award for 2D Art
2017 Georges Lurcy Grant Recipient
2016 American Photography 32 Winner