Isabella Finley

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artist statement:

“For this project, I wanted to challenge the limits of aesthetics and materiality by creating and capturing completely abstracted visual landscapes. Many of my works focus on exploring the bounds of beauty and color, and this series is no exception. Representing an intersection between the organic and artificial realms, these photographs address contemporary notions of beauty, fragility and femininity through the construction of other-worldly spaces. As the final images reveal the same material components in two different states, this project also touches on themes of evolution and the relationship between preciousness and temporality. 

This project is meaningful to me as an experimental production of fantastical imagery captured as whole photographs rather than being composed of various collage elements. To generate these images, I combined food dye, several types of cosmetic glitter, and fresh flowers with distilled water and froze the mixture inside small balloons. I melted the resulting icy orbs back into one cohesive mixture (using a hair dryer) while recording their transformations from solid to liquid.”

Photograph of the artistBIO:

Isabella Finley was born in Southern Missouri in 1999 and currently resides in New York City. She is a third year student at Gallatin, with a concentration focused on museum studies, art conservation/curation, and studio art practice. As an active artist since childhood, she enjoys working in many mediums including drawing, painting, photography and digital illustration/collage. Playing with vibrant color palettes and whimsical subject matter, she aims to produce visually rich and cheerful content to delight viewers of all ages. Common themes throughout her work include experimental portraiture, exaggerated notions of beauty, and aestheticized representations of the natural world. In response to the constant anxiety and negative imagery we are confronted by in today’s world, Isabella’s pieces are meant to serve as a visual safe haven or “happy place.”

Visit her website here.