Origin: France
Currently Exhibiting in: New York City
Website: Portfolio Website
Social Media: Instagram
Bio:
Maëlis Tomassone (b. 2003, France) is a visual artist whose work embodies the raw spontaneity and layered storytelling of street art. With an approach that thrives on experimentation, Tomassone blends multiple techniques and mediums, embracing creative freedom as the foundation of her practice. Her work primarily focuses on paper, where sketches, studies, and overlapping layers of paint, charcoal, spray, and oil pastel interact, creating dynamic compositions that reflect the chaotic beauty of urban visual culture.
Influenced by her time in Valencia, Spain—particularly the street art scene in El Carmen—Tomassone’s artistic identity has been shaped by the expressive dialogue of city walls. Now based in New York City, she continues to push the boundaries of form, texture, and meaning, creating works that celebrate the spirit of uninhibited expression while addressing personal and collective experiences of growth, struggle, and self-discovery.
Featured Artwork at Bushwick Gallery
Drowning
- Year of Creation: 2024
- Medium: Mixed media on paper
- Dimensions: 27.5 x 39.5 inches
- Price: $1,700 USD
Description:
Drowning is an evocative mixed-media work that reflects a woman’s journey of growth and reconstruction. Inspired by the struggles and contradictions that shape identity, the piece delves into complex emotions that emerge during moments of self-discovery and personal empowerment. Layers of paint, charcoal, pencil sketches, spray paint, and oil pastels converge to create a dense, textured surface that mirrors the emotional depth of the subject matter.
Tomassone’s fascination with street art is evident in the layering techniques, where different visual elements coexist and interact, much like the diverse voices found on urban walls. This intricately detailed piece invites viewers to revisit it multiple times, uncovering new symbols and meanings embedded within the layers.
Exhibition Information
Exhibition Title: Love and Heartbreak: A Duality
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 13 / 6PM-8PM
Exhibition Dates: February 13 – February 20
Theme: This exhibition juxtaposes the emotional extremes of love and heartbreak, capturing the vast spectrum of experiences that shape relationships. Maëlis Tomassone’s Drowning contributes a powerful exploration of resilience and emotional evolution. By embracing chaos and spontaneity, the artwork highlights how personal challenges can lead to self-empowerment and transformation. The layered, street-art-inspired style exemplifies the exhibition’s message: love and heartbreak are intertwined forces that drive self-discovery and artistic expression.
Guided audio experience
For accessibility, the full video transcript is provided below for those who prefer to read or are unable to listen.
“Walls speak. They whisper stories of resilience, defiance, transformation. In Drowning, Maëlis Tomassone brings the language of the streets onto paper, layering raw emotion with urban chaos, turning personal struggle into a visual dialogue.”
“This is not a painting to passively observe. It is a piece to step into—an unraveling, a reconstruction, a journey of becoming. Look at the textures: paint streaked like running ink, charcoal scrawls resembling hurried notes, pastels smudged as if caught mid-motion. These marks are not just artistic choices; they are echoes of experience, the remnants of something lived.”
“The figure at the center is drowning, but not in the way one might expect. Her mirrored face splits open, her mouth a portal of expression—speaking, gasping, maybe even screaming. The swirling white current that engulfs her is both chaos and catharsis. Is she being consumed, or is she shedding something old? Transformation often feels like drowning before it becomes rebirth.”
“Tomassone’s time in Valencia’s street art scene pulses through this piece. The walls of El Carmen can be felt—the layers of history, rebellion, vulnerability—all bleeding through the surface. Spray paint drips like time unraveling, symbols emerge and dissolve like memories scrawled onto concrete. This is a work that breathes, shifting with every glance, revealing new elements, new questions, new truths.”
“To drown is to surrender. To let go of what was and make room for what will be. Drowning is not just about loss—it’s about survival, about pushing through the suffocating weight of experience to find strength on the other side. What have you let drown? And what has emerged in its place?”