Ella Skinner is a Welsh visual artist, set designer, and creative director working across installation, performance, scenography and film. Skinner’s unapologetically visceral environments push audiences into heightened states of catharsis and terror. Skinner fuses flesh and violence into dreamlike architectures that collapse the boundaries between sacred and profane, apocalyptic and intimate, soft and brutal. Drawing on religious iconography, anti-psychiatry, and collective trauma, her work stages the body as both relic and revolt. These immersive worlds are structured like altars and cracked open like wounds- not made to be viewed, but entered.
Working between the UK and Lithuania, Skinner’s transgressive practice moves fluidly across gallery installations, club spaces, underground music, and live performance. She is known for her bold visual language, fusing visual art, experimental music, club culture, and live performance into unforgettable experiences that engage all six senses.
From trapping a performer inside a block of ice in Ecdysis (AUDRA Festival), to suffocating latex coffins in Death of the Box (Yaga Gathering), to kaleidoscopic dreamscapes of cannibalism in Bitch Goddess, each project becomes a site of transformation, disorientation, and ecstatic collapse. Her work has been shown at leading festivals and institutions across the UK, Lithuania, Iceland, and Greece, and she collaborates internationally with musicians, choreographers, and curators driven by risk, rupture and reinvention.
Education
2024 Certificate in Architectural Draughting and Art Direction for Film and Television, FDI, Pinewood Studios (distinction), London, UK
2020-2021 MFA: Manchester School of Art, Fine Art (distinction), Manchester, UK
2016-2019 BA: The University of Manchester, English Literature with History of Art (first-class Hons), Manchester, UK
Solo Exhibitions
2022 The Flesh of Himation, SIIILK Gallery at Kallergi Four, Athens, Greece
Selected Exhibitions
2025
Yaga Gathering Visionaries Art Programme, Lithuania
Cannibalisms, Lithuanian Photographers Union, Vilnius, Lithuania
2024
ROLO at Útkall Festival, Flateyri, Iceland
Audra Festival Arts Programme, M.Zilinskas Art Gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania
2023
Dismantling Dreams; Disrupted Seams, Rupert Residency at Lelija, Vilnius, Lithuania
KOMISAS, Offshore Eyes, Vilnius, Lithuania
Audra Festival Arts Programme, M.Zilinskas Art Gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania
The Sound of Glass, Resonant Bodies at Rag Gallery, Manchester, UK
2022
DIVINITY, Studio SCUM at Islington Mill, Manchester, UK
A Modest Show for the British Art Show, Islington Mill, Manchester, UK
2021
SALIVATE, Islington Mill, Manchester, UK
Manchester School of Art Master’s degree show, Holden Gallery, Manchester, UK
2021
Get Together and Get Things Done, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK
Set Design and Creative Direction
2025
Set Designer and Performance Director- Yaga Gathering, Lithuania
2024
Creative Director and Set Designer - Iceboy Violet Ecdysis, AUDRA Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
2023
Director and Set Designer - Glwzbll Untitled #13, Vilnius, Lithuania
2022
Director, Set Designer and Editor - Algernon Cornelius Black on Black, Manchester, UK, Bern, Switzerland and AUDRA Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
2021
Creative Direction and LP Designer, Philip Glass and Manchester Collective, The Centre is Everywhere, via Bedroom Community, Manchester, UK and Iceland, EU
Creative Director, Set Designer and LP Designer, Atwtr Imbibe via Monolithic Studios, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2019
Creative Direction and Scriptwriter, SCUM, Black Haine and SNITCH Publishes, The Politics of Looking, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK
2018-2022
Creative Director and Founder, Studio SCUM LTD (artistic agency and publisher), Manchester, UK. Projects include:
Divinity (2022)- Exhibition and performance showcase
FILTH (2021)- Publication and VR performance showcase
SCUM BEFORE U CUM (2020-2022)- Live event series across Manchester, UK in aid of sexual health charity Sexpression
Residencies
2024 SODAS 2123 artist in residence, Vilnius, Lithuania
2023 Rupert, Alternative Education Programme residency, Vilnius, Lithuania
2022 SIIILK Gallery artist in residence, Athens, Greece
2021 Interference and Interruption digital residency, Arts Catalyst and Resolve collective, London, UK
2020-2022 Islington Mill artist in residence, Manchester, UK
Talks and performances
2025
Death of the Box, Yaga Gathering, Lithuania (performance)
Bitch Goddess, Lithuanian Photographers Union, Vilnius, Lithuania (performance)
2024
Ecdysis, AUDRA Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania (performance)
The Exit Report, SODAS 2123, Vilnius, Lithuania (talk)
Parachorale - Teo Ala-Ruona, SODAS 2123, Vilnius, Lithuania (featured performer)
2023
Can I Cymru, Radio Vilnius, Vilnius, Lithuania (talk)
2023
The Confession Box, Rag Gallery, Manchester, UK (performance)
2022
The Confession Box, Islington Mill, Manchester, UK (performance)
2021
Antonin Artaud: The Theatre of Cruelty (an exploration of cruelty and the power of transgression in the art of Hieronymus Bosch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Hermann Nitsch), Manchester School of Art (talk)
The Box, Holden Gallery, Manchester, UK (performance)
2020
Anxieties from the Box, Islington Mill, Manchester, UK (performance)
2019
The Politics of Looking, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK (performance)
Publications (* indicates written pieces)
2021 FILTH, published via Studio SCUM (showcased artist)
2020 SCUM: THE ANTI MANIFESTO, published via Studio SCUM (showcased artist)
2019 The Politics of Looking in Art History B-sides, published by SNITCH Publishes*
Pain is Political, not Individual in SCUM Volume I, published by Studio SCUM*
Press
2023 Radio Vilnius: Tautvydas Urbelis in conversation with Ella Jo Skinner
2021 Manchester Collective: Turning sounds into visuals: in conversation with artist Ella Skinner