A young woman with dark wavy hair, wearing a black leather jacket with colorful pins, a striped black and white t-shirt, and white pants, sits in profile with multicolored makeup and red lipstick, in front of a red and white background featuring abstract eye and face designs.

about

Ariel Oakley is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, California. Her chimeric paintings and sculptures explore the boundaries of self and non-self, external and internal, life and generative decay.

She spends her days as a nurse in surgery at Keck Hospital of USC, where her engagement in open-heart surgery continues to inform her art practice.

She received her MFA in Studio Art at Maryland Institute College of Art, and her BFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute.

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Or connect directly at: arieloakleystudio@gmail.com

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What are you reading this spring? What are you making from that reading? What feels changed in you in its wake? Spring newsletter coming next week with my thoughts on this alchemy of text forged into image or object through the body. Also really c
Lacrimosa. Acrylic on unstretched canvas. 2026. A new baddie who emerged from my electric residency week @kinhouseart with @katiemurphy.art Isn’t she something? 👁️ 👄 👁️ 💦
Spring forward. This week in Fort Wayne @kinhouseart with my most wonderful generative artist bestie @katiemurphy.art is racing by. I haven’t worked in the studio every day for this many hours since… prepping for thesis? Or maybe my thir
My sculpture practice is still a painting practice. A workshop so nice we did it twice! Casting glass @yuccavalleymaterial with @heidi_schwegler is always such a blast. From a life cast in wax to this incredible object in just a weekend. It’s
Los Angeles! This little baby will be on view tonight @bendixbuilding in unit 800, 7-10pm for a special frieze week open house reception for the whole Bendix building. It’s going to be a wild time tonight in all 11 floors, roll by if you can!
I’ve never read with a backing band before! That was fun! Thank you @alexdezen from @nulla_journal and @jenniferlewiswrites from @redlightlit for including me in such a great group of writers and performers. The piece I read will be in the up
Goodnight Angels. 💙 The biggest thank you to @montevistaprojects for allowing me time and space to present Quanta Qualia in all its big weird beauty, with my strange angels and mutant mysticism for all my nearest and dearest Angeleno’s to see.
She’s getting fresh flowers weekly. 🥀 Mater Mysteriorum (Mother of Mysteries) Acrylic, vinyl emulsion, and brass milagros on panel, with velvet and fresh flowers. 48” x 60” 2026. Come see this altar evolve with wave after wave o
Slowing down, looking close. 🫀 A new cycle of small works on paper. Thinking about mysticism, decreation, and posthuman epistemologies while I look closely at the body and its interior structures. The heart, she will always be my favorite. Particul
The sorrowing mother, the mater dolorosa, she does not look away from the suffering she cannot prevent. My interest in Mary and in reworking of medieval Marian art is driven by her role as patron of the poor, as a symbol of the oppressed, as a mothe
I just love these two together. ♥️💙 Lots of big plans and ideas coming together for the fall. I’ll be back in NYC in early September, Mexico City in late October, but August is for REST. So excuse me while I celebrate my birthday mont