About
Bryony Ella’s studio designs and directs public realm installations and performances that respond to global climate and ecological collapse. Collaborating in the liminal space between science and spirituality, Ella has developed a particular focus on nurturing audience experiences that are cathartic, transformative and grounding, infusing data with wonder and wonder with data to illuminate embodied stories of belonging in / to / as nature.
Spanning film, lighting, music, dance, sculpture, spoken word and projection, her studio leads multidisciplinary, touring and site-specific projects that weave together realms of imagination, mythology and awe with tangible, lived experiences, community testimonials and academic research. Together, they invite audiences to explore and express myriad ways of understanding what it means to be human in a more-than-human world today.
In the studio, Ella works with an ecocentric and decolonial gaze to create paintings that consider the human body as a site of transformation; an experience that is fluid, dynamic, porous and intimately connected to all living systems. These works are guided by her ‘wild drawing’ practice, in which sensorial experiences of environment are prioritised over observational studies.
Both sites of practice weave throughout the other to inspire, inform and shape a body of work that celebrates, above all else, human-nature interconnectedness.
Biography & CV
Bryony Ella is a Yorkshire-born artist of British and Trinidadian heritage. Her studio is based in Cornwall, South West England. She has a Fine Art BA from Bath Spa University and an MA in Museology from the University of East Anglia. Since founding her studio in 2018, Ella’s work has been presented internationally in locations ranging from museums, galleries and festivals to cathedrals, rainforests and hospitals.
Alongside her painting practice, Ella works with nature-centred academics to create public realm artworks. She has developed touring and permanent installations across the UK and delivered participatory art programmes in the United States and Caribbean. Writing is intrinsic to this practice; Ella writes about her ‘embodied ecology’ practice on Substack, through which she shares creative approaches to deepening experiences of kinship with nature, contributes to non-fiction books and academic journals, and writes lyrical poetry for collaborations with musicians and sound designers.
This work build upon her background curating and project managing exhibition programmes for social history museums and science institutions, culminating in the role of Public Engagement Manager at the UK’s largest research lab, The Francis Crick Institute, in 2016.
Since then, her studio has produced projects for organisations such as the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the British Ecological Society, University College London, Butterfly Conservation, the Grantham Institute – Climate and the Environment at Imperial College London, William Morris Gallery, Patagonia, COCO Dance Festival Trinidad, Right to Roam, Octopus Energy, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, LDA Design, Oxford City Council, Islington Council and Fusion Arts Oxford, amongst others. In 2019, Ella’s commitment to science engagement with a social justice focus through public art was acknowledged by the Mayor of London, who highlighted her as part of the city’s centenary International Women’s Day celebrations.
Currently, Ella is Research Artist and public engagement lead for the international Wellcome Trust-funded project Melting Metropolis, which studies environmental and community histories of urban heat and health. Working within a team of historians and geographers at the University of Liverpool and Queens College City University of New York, Ella designs and delivers creative programmes inspired by their academic research. She is also mentor for Melting Metropolis’ community storytellers in London and New York, and co-supervisor of an embodied geographies of heat PhD research project in Port of Spain, Trinidad.
Image credits: Ewelina Ruminska, 2026
Exhibitions
Public Commissions
Research & Residencies
Awards & Prizes
Publications & Writing
Selected Press
Bryony Ella’s Solar Cartography of Urban Heat, Made in Bed magazine, Sotheby’s
Creator of the Month, The Great Outdoors magazine
How can art transform our relationship to nature?, Black Earth Podcast
Taking Space in Nature: The Power of Change, Environment magazine
The Dataset’s Dream, Resurgence & Ecologist magazine
Green Visions: When artists and ecologists meet, The Niche magazine, British Ecological Society
The Colour of Transformation, Where The Leaves Fall magazine
Life Lines, bind collective journal
Bloom where you are planted, Jackson’s Art journal
The Rebel Zine, Newham Extinction Rebellion