Zola Kell (she/her) is a white settler living on the lands of the Bitterroot Salish (Séliš), Pend d’Oreille (Ql̓ispé), Nez Perce (Nimíipuu), Coeur d’Alene (Schi̲tsu’umsh), and Kootenai (Ktunʌ́χɑ̝) peoples in what is currently known as Missoula, MT.
Zola Kell is an installation and mixed-media artist currently interested in creating playful objects. Working with primarily salvaged materials, she explores how to use textiles to give life to sculptural forms. Along with a variety of traditional media, she often blends digital technology and alternative photography to produce the imagery and textures she wants for installation pieces. Her pieces range from reveries on mythic figures that were imprinted on her in childhood and investigations into the magic of the natural world. Currently, she is exploring themes of nostalgia, family, and identity through reimagined toys and playthings. No longer satisfied with drawing windows into which viewers can look, Zola seeks to build worlds for you to inhabit– each a microcosm that reflects her interior reality.
Zola enjoys singing to birds, dancing with the wind, and laughing loud enough to make the flowers bloom. She spends her spare time making real-time videos of snails and walking face-first into spider webs.