BIO
Isabel is a visual artist, aspiring cook, and retired musician based in North Adams, Massachusetts. Originally from Cabin John, Maryland, Isabel graduated High School from the Washington Waldorf School and went on to receive her B.A. from Bennington College in 2018 with concentrations in music, visual arts, and neuroscience. She has exhibited at MASS MoCA, Future Labs Gallery, and the Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams, MA, and was a 2025 recipient of the Assets for Artists Northern Berkshire Capacity Building Grant.
Isabel now offers freelance Marketing and Web Development support to clients in Western Massachusetts and Washington DC. She also recently started pursuing food professionally as a part-time baker and cook at Steeple City Social, a bakery and bar in North Adams, MA. In her free time, Isabel likes to rollerblade, crochet, practice yoga, try new restaurants, and make visual and edible art in her kitchen and in-home studio space. For more information about Isabel’s work experience, please find her CV here. To see what she's cooking, see her food Instagram, "Wontwans"-- where she shares Asian recipes and food photography.
CONTACT
@isabel_mai_
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a lifelong artist, retired musician, and self-taught home cook. My work throughout my life, and through the lens of my Jewish and Chinese upbringing, has always involved the intersection of two or more ideas, cultures, concepts, or processes. I am an illustrator, painter, and ceramicist that explores my love for food and cooking through humor, nostalgia, and memories of home. Ranging anywhere from comic-form illustrated narratives detailing a cooking technique, to still-life observation tablescapes, to multi-character imagery of animal/food crossovers, my ideas come from seeing, eating, and the whimsy I find in both. My newfound journey into ceramics began with small-scale, food-themed wearables such as bolo ties and earrings, and has since expanded into a tool to bring together sculpture, painterly techniques, surface narrative, and illustration into functional ceramic forms. With versatility in medium exploration at the forefront of my practice, I am consistently learning, experimenting, culminating, and gesturing into the next piece, usually while thinking about my next meal.