Izabela Cookson (they/them) is an Brazilian American artist, photographer, and curator working between Miami, FL and Baltimore, MD. As a polyglot, Cookson examines syntax in 5 languages and presents them visually through historic methods of photography, installation, stop motion animation, sculpture, and artist books.

They received their BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Photography and History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture in 2026 and have exhibited their work across the US in museums, galleries, and fairs. Exhibition history includes group shows at ICA Miami (2021, 2022), New Artists Dealers Association Miami (2023), Wilgus Gallery and Main Zero Gallery in Baltimore (2025- 2022), Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia (2025), and LightWork Photographic Gallery (2023) in Astoria, Oregon and two solo shows, Death Drop (2025) and Hyperthermia (2026) in Baltimore, MD.

Artist Statement

My practice operates as visual linguistics, examining how the composition of speech and language shapes the way we understand the human experience. As a polyglot –speaking English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and the fifth language of the internet– I am interested in how words have migrated, transformed, and accumulated meaning across geographies, communities, and time to describe the lives we lead. Through the construction of images, I deconstruct phrases, idioms, and figures of speech, proposing photography as a site where language can be understood in the absence of characters and grammar. Language functions both as subject and material, with photography as a tool of translation, capable of rendering words and phrases visible in the absence of fluency and proficiency.

Through labor-intensive modes such as installation, stop motion animation, artist books, and sculpture, I start with images and transform them as an embodied form of language learning, translation, and storytelling. The materiality of cyanotype operates similarly, its repetitive and accumulative nature mirrors the act of fluency– where rehearsal, refinement, and repetition are required. Sequencing, layering, and fragmentation of images allow them to function syntactically, constructing meaning through relation rather than singularity. By moving photography beyond static means and into spatial and time-based forms, I position visual language as physical and experiential, capable of being felt, interpreted and shared across cultural and linguistic barriers.

Assignment and commissioned work, editorial, fashion, studio, portraits, etc. available upon request. 

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