ARTIST STATEMENT
Permeating a paradoxical allure with materials like latex and hair, my work serves as a surrogate for the body and the afflictions of bodily containment. I wrestle in the goo of abjection, subverting the marginalizing nature of disgust. Bodies here are unstable and boundary-less; biologically synthetic mutants that tamper with tactile relationships, promoting rapid aging, discoloration, and festering. I work in a space of untangling entrails, of autopsying contradictions. Shedding my skin, repairing wounds, peeling blisters, picking scabs, and excreting the self, I scratch at the relationship of the body and the structural tendencies they exist in.
These forms challenge the biopolitics of reproducing bodies as subordinated vessels for collective future, suggesting an alternative posthuman relationship between power and reproduction. Drawing from feminist reconfigurations of the body that investigate liberation and contradiction within synthetic biology, these anatomies are birthed from the gut and play in the viscera.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Isabella Covert (b. 2001 Milwaukee, WI) is a painter and sculptor. She received a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2023 and is currently a MFA Candidate and Graduate Fellowship recipient at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Referencing body horror and the boundary-less nature of the body, her work examines the relationship of reproducing bodies within current biopolitical frameworks. Prodding at expanding posthuman potentialities of the body, she investigates liberation and contradiction within synthetic biologies.
Covert’s work has been exhibited in galleries across the United States, including Echo Contemporary, Atlanta; Purple Window Gallery, Chicago; and The Blanc, New York; among others. Her work has been featured in publications such as Surface Design Association, Divide Magazine, and Visionary Magazine. Covert currently lives and works in Savannah, GA.
© Isabella Covert