Marissa McDowell

About the Artist

Marissa McDowell is a Cleveland-based multidisciplinary visual artist working across photography and illustration to tell stories that reflect the richness and complexity of her community. With a bachelor’s degree in fashion from Kent State University, she brings a refined visual sensibility and a deep respect for narrative to everything she creates. Her work is grounded in a desire to preserve, celebrate, and elevate the voices and experiences that shape Black culture.

Specializing in live music and entertainment, Marissa captures the energy, power, and presence of Black musicians on stage—moments that are both culturally significant and personally resonant. Beyond performance, her work is rooted in a broader commitment to documenting Black life in all its forms—its beauty, its challenges, its everyday magic. Through bold imagery and layered storytelling, Marissa creates work that honors her community from the inside out, offering a lens that is as intentional as it is intimate

Artist's Connection to the Work

In the Afrofuture, Black women not only survive—they thrive

This collection was inspired by a vision of what the future of Black maternal birthing, healthcare, and self-care can look like. In 2020, a study by Bloomberg CityLab and the University of Pittsburgh revealed a sobering truth; Cleveland ranked last in livability for Black women — a devastating reality considering the city is home to multiple world-renowned healthcare systems. The study, which examined factors including education, economics, and healthcare, became a driving force for my work on this project.

This collection is a meditation on Black maternal health, envisioning a future where healing, rest, and care are sacred birthrights.

Through an Afrofuturistic lens, I imagined new possibilities of care that honor both heritage and innovation. Afrofuturism, at its core, is a weaving together of advanced technology with holistic, ancestral, and cultural practices. That framework opened a world of creativity for me — one where Black mothers-to-be are nurtured in spaces of rest, healing, and reverence. Each vignette in this collection represents a sanctuary, a world unto itself. They are symbolic portals embodying the safety and care every mother deserves while carrying life. 

I was honored to collaborate with three remarkable expecting mothers, as well as three Cleveland-based businesses that welcomed this vision with open arms. Ethereal Cradle was created inside Salty, a woman-owned natural salt cave spa in Chardon, Ohio. Celestial Waters was photographed at True Rest, a float therapy spa in Rocky River, Ohio. Bathing in Sacred Frequencies came to life at M. Frierson Therapy, a Black woman-owned psychotherapy and wellness practice in Cleveland, Ohio. While my collection envisions what Black maternal healthcare might look like in an Afrofuture, these spaces already exist here in our own community — spaces that I encourage everyone, from all walks of life, to experience.

Ultimately, this project is a call to reimagine and to affirm. Black women, and especially Black mothers, deserve accessible, reliable, and nurturing healthcare and self-care experiences as they bring new life into the world. May these images shine a light on what is possible, and what is urgently needed, in both present and future.