Ella Skinner is a Welsh visual artist and set designer. Her transgressive and often provocative works create experiences that engage all six senses. Working with architecture, flesh and religious iconography, she is interested in using art as a transformative experience for her audiences.Skinner initially trained as a fiction writer and painter, studying a bachelor's in English Literature with History of Art at the University of Manchester. During this time, she began operating within DIY experimental artistic scenes in both England and Wales, leading her to create installations and performances that challenged traditional conceptions of art, discipline and order. Skinner graduated with a Masters in Fine Art from Manchester School of Art and went on to complete a certificate in architectural draughting for production design at Pinewood Studios, London. Her visual art expands to artistic direction and set design for film, events and music.

Ella Skinner and Iceboy Violet 

Ecdysis 

"Instead of my world, there would soon be only ice, snow, stillness, death; no more violence, no war, no victims; nothing but frozen silence, absence of life" – Anna Kavan (Ice, 1967)

Ecdysis is an audio-visual collaboration between rapper and performer, Iceboy Violet and artist and set designer, Ella Skinner. This piece is performed within an ice sculpture which changes on exposure to heat, light, body and movement. The ice barrier between the performer and audience morphs into a world of dis//embodiment, ir//reality, in//ex//ternality and in//authenticity, between fantasy and reality in which the inner becomes the outer and the exoskeleton is obliterated.

Iceboy Violet’s vocal improvisation and fragments, freestyled rap and incidental sound from the structure and audience, paired with Skinner’s visceral, provocative and pseudo-spiritual scenographic design, create a sonic world of icey awe and terror.

Art direction and set design: Ella Skinner
Musical composition: Iceboy Violet
Ice sculpture: Ledo Meistrai