Bio and Artist's Statement
Isabella “Issy” De Tullio (she/they) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Guelph, Ontario. Rooted in Italian heritage and community values, Issy’s practice reimagines what it means to be “rich.” Working across drawing, printmaking, painting, and beyond, Issy invites viewers to reconsider where we assign value and how we define worth. She critiques social systems that prescribe conformist identities and productivity-based purpose. Exploring the tensions between what is intrinsic, inherited, and imposed, Issy offers radical love within frameworks built to be demanding and repressive. Through humble materials and layered storytelling, their work honours lives made abundant through resourcefulness, resilience, and reverence for simple blessings. Quiet triumphs and treasured heirlooms are not always what we expect them to be.
Much of Issy’s work draws inspiration from the legacy of their immigrant grandparents, who are figures rich in culture, friendship, food, gardens, and willful creativity. Though these relationships are cherished, they carry tensions marked by silence and longing. Issy's practice becomes a gesture towards connection across generations, cultures, and silences. It is a love letter addressed to her Nonni, written with a knowing that it will remain unread.
Issy's Nonno passed away before they could fully share who they were becoming, though his unconditional pride remains a source of strength. Their Nonna, still living, undeniably loves Issy with a heart somehow too big for the confines of her worldview. Though she knows Issy better now, a part of Nonna may always grieve the perfect Catholic family she imagined for her beloved granddaughter. Despite honest efforts to overcome her hesitations around queerness, Nonna remains unconcerned with visual art. It is unlikely that even Issy’s love-rich work could fully dissolve what lingers between them. Themes of duality run through Issy’s work: scarcity and abundance, shame and pride, obligation and agency, reality and magic. Their work is as much about gratitude as it is about struggle. As a child, Issy learned from their grandparents about the generosity of the land—seeds as hope, vegetables as sustenance, herbs as flavour, water as a miracle. Just as a seed can grow into a fruit-bearing tree, there is creative potential in the overlooked or undervalued.
As a white settler living and creating on the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, Issy strives to be in relationship with the land. The land’s histories, teachings and gifts are the greatest example that love and reciprocity emerge even under constraint. When envisioning a future where systemic constraints have been dismantled, the land, love, and reciprocity do not just endure; they flourish.
Issy holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Guelph’s School of Fine Art and Music (2023), where they graduated with distinction and received several awards for their work.
