BIO

Ilyáwen Ishii is a photographer working in the photo-joiner form. She builds single compositions from multiple images of the same subject taken across time and from shifting vantage points. Her works are characterized by layered, overlapping frames that expand a subject beyond what any single photograph can hold.

Ishii's practice engages memory, place, and inherited ways of seeing. Attentive to the interior life of people and landscapes, her work draws on the legacy of her great-grandfather, P. H. Polk, who spent nearly five decades as the official photographer of Tuskegee Institute, making his portraits from what he called the shadow side, the space between light and darkness where a person's truth lives.

Ilyáwen Ishii (b. 1988, Joint Base Andrews, MD) holds a B.S. in Urban Arts, Summa Cum Laude, from Coppin State University, where she received the Ron L. Collins Sr. Scholars Award, given annually to a student whose academic achievement and community presence have distinguished them within the program. She is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Community Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Ishii has exhibited at Baltimore Unity Hall, Baltimore, MD (When Roots Run Deep, 2025) and at the Bearman Gallery, Douglass-Myers Museum, Baltimore, MD (For Us. By Us., 2026). She lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.

CV

Born in 1988, Joint Base Andrews, MD

Resides and works in Baltimore, MD

EDUCATION

2026–Present M.F.A., Community Arts

Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD

2024–2026 B.A., Urban Arts, Summa Cum Laude

Coppin State University, Baltimore, MD

2021–2023 A.A., General Studies, Humanities Concentration

Community College of Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD

EXHIBITIONS

2026 For Us. By Us.

Bearman Gallery, Douglass-Myers Museum, Baltimore, MD

2025 When Roots Run Deep

Baltimore Unity Hall, Baltimore, MD

AWARDS

2026 Ron L. Collins Sr. Scholars Award

College of Arts & Sciences and Education

Coppin State University, Baltimore, MD

2026 Highest GPA in Major — Urban Arts

Senior Academic Achievement Awards, 20th Anniversary

Coppin State University, Baltimore, MD

COMMISSIONS

2025 She Care Mural

Commissioned by the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation

in partnership with Kate Spade New York

Coppin State University campus, Baltimore, MD

PROFESSIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS

2026–Present Ceramics Studio Technician & Teaching Assistant

Urban Arts, Coppin State University, Baltimore, MD

2025–Present Art & Wellness Facilitator, She Care Pods

Coppin State University, Baltimore, MD

2024–2026 Shop Instructor

Open Works, Baltimore, MD

2023–Present Teaching Artist

Art With a Heart, Baltimore, MD