About

Bio
Cherisse Alcantara is a Filipina-American painter whose luminous oil paintings explore themes of home, belonging, impermanence, and memory. Drawing on imagery from nature, shifting light, landscapes, and her surroundings, she transforms everyday observations and fleeting moments into quiet meditations on place, time, and the search for rootedness. Through layered surfaces, nuanced color, and attention to atmosphere, Alcantara explores moments of transition and invites viewers to reflect on time, change, presence, and the unknown.

Cherisse received her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2021) and her BA from the University of California, Berkeley (2013). She is the recipient of the Wendy Sussman Prize in Painting and the Dessner Memorial Travel Award. Her work has been exhibited at the de Young Museum, PAFA Museum, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and is held in the collection of the San Francisco Arts Commission. She has held residencies at Jentel (WY) and Chalk Hill (CA). Born in the Philippines and raised there and in the United States, Alcantara lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.