BIO

Ilyawen Ishii is a multidisciplinary artist based in Baltimore, Maryland. Working in photography, she combines alternative and digital processes to create monochrome images presented as face-mounted acrylic prints. Her work is best known for its figurative imagery, which captures threshold states of being, revealing unseen layers and silent transformations.

Ilyawen’s practice explores the edges of selfhood and the emotional and spiritual inheritances that shape how we connect, experiment, and grow. Through a visual language that is both subtle and resonant, her work illuminates the interior lives of subjects navigating complex identities shaped by gender, culture, and neurodivergent experience. Themes of ancestral memory, embodied presence, and quiet expansion weave throughout her evolving body of work.

CV

Born in 1988 on Andrews Air Force Base, MD
Resides and works in Baltimore, MD

EDUCATION

2024-Present: BS in Urban Arts, Coppin State University, Baltimore, MD

EXHIBITIONS

2025, When Roots Run Deep, Baltimore Unity Hall, Baltimore, MD

PROFESSIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS

2024-Present: Shop Instructor, Open Works, Baltimore, MD.
2023-2025: Teaching Artist, Art With a Heart, Baltimore, MD.