Izabela Cookson (they/them) is an Brazilian American artist, photographer, and curator working between Miami, FL and Baltimore, MD. They are currently pursuing their BFA in Photography and the History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and will be graduating in May of 2026. Their work is best described as a love letter, exploring the complicated notions of love through historical methods of photography, installation, stop motion animation, and artist books.

Their work has been exhibited across the US in museums, galleries, and fairs in group shows at ICA Miami (2021, 2022), New Artists Dealers Association Miami (2023), and Wilgus Gallery and Main Zero Gallery in Baltimore (2024, 2022), and LightWork Photographic Gallery (2023) in Astoria Oregon. Most recently, Cookson received a grant from YoungArts to fund their project Death Drop, about drag culture and its intersection with American funerary rituals as a way to probe and make comments about identity, constructed and inherent, and the language we use to describe it.

Their upcoming show, Death Drop, will be on view at The Great White Wall Gallery on MICA’s campus November 2025. 

Artist Statement

My work serves as a love letter. Through the practice of making labour intensive cyanotypes, I untangle the complicated nature of love, obsessing over the countless, interwoven moments that collectively give shape to the feeling. Photographs, then cyanotypes, are physical records of these moments, collective and complex, mirroring the multifaceted nature of love- the tender, the messy, and the imperfect. The process of printing repeatedly, with each iteration revealing something unique, mirrors the true highs and lows of what it means to love and be loved—each moment distinct, yet bound together to make sense of something as rare and fleeting as love itself.

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