Los Angeles-based visual artist Marissa Porter, famously known as Lady Pcasso, has established herself as an emerging woman of color in the digital art community. Known for her original illustrated characters who empower women’s sensuality through colorful bad bitch personas of all shades and sizes, Marissa has been running the game with her art business for the past three years. As an admirer of her work and artist on my own creative journey for over a year, it was a dream come true to be able to speak with Marissa.
Marissa developed a love for art at a young age. Her parents exposed her to art through regular museum trips, making it a point to expose her to art early on in life. Being hard of hearing has also impacted her connection to visual art. As a person who is hard of hearing, having to rely on her eyes more than any other sense helped Marissa capture what she sees in the world and put it into her art. She is a self-taught artist, only taking a few formal oil painting classes in college. Besides teaching herself practical art skills growing up, Marissa has also needed to teach herself self-confidence. While those closest to her were always supportive of her passion, disapproving voices planted seeds of doubt and insecurity in her artistic abilities.
“I knew my parents were always supportive when it came to art, and my friends were always saying, ‘I love your art; you have such cool drawings.’ People were rooting for me, but certain family members and teachers would say, ‘Are you sure you wanna take that seriously?’ or ‘That’s just a hobby.’ It can be discouraging.”
Unsupportive comments and her insecurity with her hearing loss fueled many self-esteem issues growing up, but she channeled this energy into creating art that directly challenged her own negativity. Themes of confidence, sensuality, sex appeal and independence are staple to her artwork. Marissa aims to show you that you can be a bad bitch through authenticity. Badass women dominating the world, taking charge and working for themselves in the media had a deep impact on her, shaping her stylistic elements and inspiration for the women she depicts in her own work. Characters like Bratz Dolls that she describes as exuding a girly and sassy type of vibe are what resonated with her, and over time, she’s been recognized to incorporate that energy in her work. Her art is also a personal middle finger to those who don’t recognize art as a serious career or a living to sustain oneself — something that she has proven wrong through her successful business. After completing her zodiac collection in early 2020, Marissa noticed serious traction for her business, which allowed her to shift her art from traditional to digital and flesh out a new range of concepts. The height of the Black Lives Matter movement inspired her to begin mixing art with politics that cover a range of issues, creating works such as her “Skin Color is Not Reasonable Suspicion” piece, canvas tote bags featuring her cartoon personas paired with slogans advocating to protect the ocean and more recently, a body positive piece featuring women of various skin tones and body types. Transitioning from being an abstract painter to using digital art as a medium to depict vibrant socially conscious cartoon baddies, her style continues to evolve while staying true to her core themes.
In the early days of her career back in 2017, Marissa threw herself into books and online resources on how to run a thriving business after quitting college to pursue art full time. Watching artists on YouTube, like Happy D. Artist and Alythuh, provided a glimpse into how to build a business and following. Their vulnerability about their journeys and achievements in their art provided not only advice, but also inspiration. Twitter’s art community became another reservoir of empowerment. As she engaged with this community, she found solidarity.
“I feel like Twitter (artists) … they dont give a shit,” she laughed. “The art community will talk about the crazy stuff that goes on behind the scenes with the art business. They’re professional, but they open up more. I love being on Twitter when that happens because it’s like, ‘Wait a minute, I went through the same thing! I understand what they’re going through.’ We can all relate with the same struggles and things we deal with.”
This sense of community dispels any competitiveness between artists, allowing for growth and diversity in personal art styles. For Marissa, the vulnerability that the art community shares on Twitter is what draws her to the platform and allows her to truly engage with others. On Twitter, Marissa can ask for help, find new ways to improve her business and, most importantly, find motivation to never give up on herself. She shared that, in this business, there’s always going to be trial and error. Whether business is booming or sales slowly trickle in, it’s essential to constantly adapt.
Social media has opened up many doors for Marissa. She has accumulated a community of 12.8k followers on Instagram and 15k followers on Twitter. This exposure, coupled with 2020’s state of limbo, motivated her to start something she had always planned on doing: a YouTube channel. As the world became more health conscious over the course of the pandemic, Marissa was also on her own fitness journey in conjunction with her art journey. From everyone collectively dying after one Chloe Ting workout video to TikTok food trends popping up every month, the stars aligned for Marissa to get her channel off the ground and share what she loves most. Since she began her channel last year, Marissa has now gained over 43k followers, using her platform to share what she was going through and learning in her art journey in the same ways her favorite YouTubers did for her.
“This whole pandemic opened up a door for me to get more creative because everything got shut down. I couldn’t even go to my job anymore, so that left me at home and that’s when I decided how I could use my time. I realized I could start my YouTube channel; I could show people how I’ve been taking care of my health. My motivation is just, ‘Do I really wanna be sad? Do I want to stay on this path if I don’t take care of myself?’ I’ve dealt with mental health issues in the past. I remind myself constantly, ‘OK, if I don’t take care of myself, if I’m not investing in myself, that could lead me into a darker path.’ Always reminding myself what I truly want, what’s truly important, doing little things in my day-to-day life can really help me. Constantly telling myself that has ingrained itself in my mindset and made it easier for me to be more motivated to take care of myself. It’s crazy how all of this came into play.”
From her early work abstractions to vibrant cartoon baddies, Marissa’s style continues to evolve while staying true to her core themes. While she acknowledges that her business and art are constantly evolving, she also recognizes that she can’t cater to everyone. Furthermore, as diverse as the art community and the art they produce are, widespread representation is scarce and even harder to garner as a self-taught and self-managed professional.
“I’ve learned to stick with my art and what my message is: empower women. And I can’t cater to men or male art because something I’m inspired by is strong women, the diversity of women.”
Marissa’s ambition, artistry and empathic personality have blessed her with the success, talent and love that she so undeniably deserves. She expressed that she is nowhere near finished with her art and where it’s going.
“I want to show more of my life as an artist, the art world, the art business, showing my process and the behind-the-scenes of running an art business from home,” she shared. “When things get back to normal, it would be nice to have my art in galleries and get into a museum one day. That would be really cool. Just continuing to expand as a business, create more sassy girls, keep it fun and not take life too seriously.”
As for what’s next? A special secret project is currently in the works, something her audience has been getting small glimpses of on her social media accounts. Everything she was inspired by when she was younger has allowed her to become more authentic with her art, and she seeks to infuse strength and femininity through the diverse women she illustrates. Marissa’s mission to depict the full range of empowering women, regardless of ethnicity or body size, through her art just gets better over time. In doing so, we can all find ourselves represented in her fantasy world.