Ella Mahoney is a visual artist, illustrator, and educator, and a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). She holds a BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts and an MA in Art Education from Pratt Institute. Her interdisciplinary practice centers on storytelling, often drawing from Wampanoag creation stories and her personal experience of indigeneity and connection to land and water. Through engaging with stories through various mediums such as silk painting, performance, children’s books, and oral storytelling— she offers different avenues to build deeper connections with the meaning and purpose of each story, building on indigenous history and legends for the future.
Working primarily in oil, acrylic, and silk painting, Mahoney’s recent work focuses on large-scale silk installations that evoke the movement, memory, and atmosphere of north east coastal environments— and more specifically, Aquinnah. She has illustrated children’s books for the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project and collaborated with institutions such as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Long Island Children’s Museum, and MassArt, exhibiting in gallery and museum settings and creating immersive works in dialogue with performance and place.