Ava Albelo is a Cuban-American painter and interdisciplinary artist originally from Miami, Florida. She will be graduating with a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Spring of 2025. Her work uses surrealist images to construct an autobiographical narrative. She particularly focuses on distortions of the human body and animals from the natural world. Her pieces often serve a diaristic purpose. They speak together as statements on everyday life, as well as the relationships of queer women set against the backdrop of a society that works in contradiction to them. She has shown work around the Wisconsin area such as at the COPA in Fitchburg, the Commonwealth Gallery, and Madison’s Print and Resist. She has done illustrative work with local Punk and DIY bands such as Eat Turf, Fruits of Love, and The Living Johnsons. Her drawings have been published in Illumination Magazine and the Madison Journal of Literary Criticism.