Larissa Bates

Larissa Bates (b. 1981; USA) was raised between Vermont and Vara Blanca, Costa Rica as a result of a diverse family background. Her elaborate small-scale paintings often depict family environments where the artist includes some of her relatives, mainly her aunt and grandmother, and sometimes herself. When Bates inquires into social functions of families and the role of women in creating identities, she does that from a personal point of view, but also referring to a broader cultural phenomenon. To create her vibrant, sometimes sunny, somehow dreamlike domestic scenes, Bates relies on her technical minuteness, which leads her to work as attentive to detail as a manuscript illuminator. This impression is enhanced by the materials that the artist uses: not only gouache and ink, but also mother of pearl and gold leaf. Often mining a combination of colonial and neo-colonial Latin American history, as well as autobiography, the work engages with questions of authenticity, the third space, hybridity, and processes of acculturation and how one aquires culture and group belonging, and deculturation--the loss of culture and language. Masculinity and the social performance of family structures are investigated in a through the vocabularies of painting, sculpture, and video.

She has had solo exhibitions nationally and internationally, including Monya Rowe Gallery, New York; GNYP Gallery, Berlin; Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles; Galeria Espacio Minimo, Madrid; NADA Art Fair, Miami and Mogadishni, Copenhagen. Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at the Ulrich Museum, DC Moore Gallery, and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. In 2026 she had her first museum solo exhibition at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield.

Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Contemporary Art China, Public Art (Korea), El Cultural (Spain), New York Magazine, Time Out, and KUNSTforum. Her work is part of permanent collections such as the West Collection (USA), the 21c Museum Hotels (USA), The Howard A. and Judith Tullman Collection (USA), and the Wellington Management Collection (USA). She has been the recipient of the Artadia Award and was a resident artist at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Larissa Bates graduated from Hampshire College in 2003 with a degree in Studio Art. She has been the recipient of the Artadia Award and was a resident artist at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Larissa Bates lives and works in New York.

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