Julia Cella (b. 1998) is a multimedia artist and storyteller born in Boston and currently based in Barcelona. Her works consider themes of identity, the physicality of the body vs. place, and queerness, which she explores through the construction of fictional fantasies.

Julia’s characters often take the forms of devils, angels, ghosts, personified objects and bodies with contorted and disrupted physical forms: exploring (1) the grotesque, withered and faded beauty of personal histories and (2) a character’s fleeting intimacies and delicate intricacies. In many of her pieces, you’ll notice backgrounds & surroundings that intrude on overlapping–sometimes indistinguishable–bodies and adjacent objects. These components act as a visual map that emphasizes confusing borders, melding boundaries, blurred & morphing lines: a mapping of body, self, place, multiple realities, and you. We travel with these characters as they claim ownership of their trauma, and rewrite their own sense of space, home, and family that centers on queer expression and identity.