Marcus Fischer is an interdisciplinary artist and musician based in Portland, OR; a first-generation American artist who creates, collects, and transforms sound into immersive, layered compositions that accompany performances and exhibitions. He contributed two sound works and two performances to the 2019 Whitney Biennial as the sole artist from the Pacific Northwest included in the edition.
Fischer has been selected for residencies at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Rauschenberg Residency, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, and was awarded The Ford Family Foundation’s Hallie Ford Fellowship in the Visual Arts as well as the International Music & Composition Fellowship from the Montalvo Arts Center’s Sally and Don Lucas Artists Program in 2024.
While at MacDowell, Fischer worked on recording new music using the Chapman Studio's early 1900's Steinway & Sons piano, guitar, and zither. Focusing on restraint and natural atmosphere over the kinds of hybrid electronic processes that were a major component of his past work. In addition to the instrumental pieces, Fischer also made extensive field recordings and photographs in the woods and along the trails. Together all these elements have taken shape into a collection of songs to be completed in the last half of 2025. In the last weeks of his residency, he presented to the Monadnock community at MacDowell Downtown as well as giving collaborative performance with Máiréad Delaney in the Stone Garden outside the James Baldwin Library.
Portrait by Sam Gehrke
