Aelana is a mixed media artist based in Washington, DC. Raised in the Philadelphia area, she previously worked as a set designer in New York City and Miami, where she developed a sensitivity to space, staging, and the choreography of visual elements. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art History, with a concentration in Architectural History, from Pratt Institute. Alongside her studio practice, she works as an Architectural Resource Director.
Her practice centers on hand-cut paper collage, drawing from vintage materials marked by time and use. Influenced by her interest in constructed environments, her works unfold like sets—assembled, altered, and held in suspension. Through layering and recontextualization, she gathers fragments of the past and sets them into new relation. Images are displaced, edges remain visible, and meaning remains fluid.
Her compositions inhabit a space between memory and invention, where the familiar becomes uncertain and newly seen.