Bio

Isabel Sorrells (b. 2001) is a Connecticut-based artist whose oil paintings investigate the impact of her experience as a sexual assault survivor on the relationship between her physical appearance and sense of identity. Engaging with themes of objectification, transformation, and self-preservation to reimagine herself as an invincible, monstrous, ever-changing and many-limbed creature, her paintings deconstruct and reconfigure fragmented images of plants, flowers, and her own body into ambiguous tangles of limbs and flesh, blurring lines between figurative and botanical forms to create subjects that function as both embodied memories and living, autonomous creatures. In addition to her own experiences, Isabel's work draws inspiration from the role of women artists in the history of both figurative and still-life flower painting and explores the ways non-human species use mimicry, visual cues, and physical defense structures to ensure their survival and deter predation. Drawing connections between these spheres of research, her paintings seek to ask: What does it mean to be seen as a sexual object? What does it mean to distort one's appearance beyond recognition--to become grotesque or intimidating? How can we survive the aftermath of sexual violence, and how does survival transform us?

Isabel received her BA in Art with Honors from Lafayette College in 2023, and in 2024, she participated in NYC Crit Club's Canopy Program in a cohort led by NYC-based painter Jennifer Coates. In January 2025, her work was included in a group exhibition in the NYC Crit Club gallery space in Chelsea, NYC.