Isabella Covert (b. 2001 Milwaukee, WI) is a painter and sculptor. She received a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2023 and is currently a MFA Candidate and Graduate Fellowship recipient at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Referencing the genre of body horror, and its nature of undoing the limits of a human's bodily autonomy and ownership, her work communicates the interplay of bodily horror and excess political control of reproducing bodies. Through this relationship, her work dissects the connection between contemporary capitalism, speculative horror, and the inhuman. Covert currently lives and works in Savannah, GA.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Communicating the interplay of excess political control and gendered dynamics, the entangled forms in my work dematerialize and abstract the body and its capabilities. Referencing the genre of bodily horror, and its nature of exaggerating fear of lacking bodily control, my work relates this imagery to ongoing systemic control over reproducing bodies. Permeating a paradoxical allure with abject materials like latex and hair, my work serves as a surrogate for the body and the afflictions of bodily containment. Shedding my skin, repairing injury, peeling blisters, reducing swelling, picking scabs, and excreting the self, I scratch at the relationship of the body and the structural tendencies they exist in.
These forms challenge the biopolitics of bodies as subordinated vessels of reproduction for collective futures. Breaking the rigid cycle with aggressive elasticity, these fabricated anatomies are birthed from the gut and play in the viscera.