​Ingrid V. Wells enjoys using playful subject matter to address complex topics including resilience, personal energetics and consciousness. She has exhibited her work professionally since 2010 in the United States, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Ireland. Wells has produced over ten solo exhibitions in the San Francisco Bay Area with Glass Rice Gallery, Voss Gallery, Artists' Television Access, Luna Rienne Gallery, Olive Hyde Gallery, Harrington Gallery and in Arizona with Phoenix Institute of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale Public Art and with Eye Lounge: A Contemporary Art Space. She has exhibited her work in over one hundred group exhibitions at galleries and museums including The Museum of Northern California Art (MONCA), Mystic Museum of Art, The Museum of Human Achievement, the CICA Museum in Gimpo-si, South Korea, Tokyo International Art Fair, PULSE Miami Art Fair, The Untitled Space (NY, NY), Foley Gallery (NY, NY), Center for Contemporary Arts (Santa Fe, NM), Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, Bedford Gallery at the Lesher Center for the Arts (Walnut Creek, CA), Modified Arts, (Phoenix, AZ), PxP Contemporary and was an invited artist for the ACLU Gala in San Francisco, CA. Wells has exhibited and spoken about her work at academic art institutions and research university galleries including St. Mary's College of Maryland, Stanford University, Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design, Jackson Dinsdale Art Center (Hastings, NE), Skyes Gallery (Millersville, PA), Zoller Gallery (State College, PA), Diego Rivera Gallery (San Francisco, CA), di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art and with California College of the Arts.
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Her work has been featured and reviewed in The Huffington Post, Daily Mail, BUST Magazine, Create! Magazine, W Magazine, Girl Talk HQ, Creative Boom, NYLON, Audiofemme, SF Weekly, Hyperallergic, Flavorwire, KQED, The Jealous Curator, Teen Vogue and in other media publications. In 2019 her painting was invited to be featured as a cover image in Spain’s leading newspaper El País representing the international women’s movement. Wells has received generous support from the New York Foundation for the Arts (in collaboration with The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation), Center for Cultural Innovation, The Arts Council of Ireland, Cork City Council, San Francisco Art Institute and Arizona State University.

She received a Certificate of Honor from the Board of Supervisors for the City and County of San Francisco in 2020, for painting uplifting murals in COVID-19 hospital overflow patient spaces. Her artwork was recently invited to serve as buried treasure in the San Francisco 2025 Treasure Hunt, covered by NPR. Wells was recently interviewed on the New Visionary Podcast with Victoria J. Fry on How to Bring More Joy & Self-Compassion into Your Art Practice. She was recently an artist in residence at Sample-Studios in Cork, Ireland in June 2025, as part of the inaugural international Sister Cities artist exchange program through the Cork City Lord Mayor's Office.

Her studio is located in Yelamu, also known as San Francisco, on the unceded territories of Ramaytush Ohlone peoples. She looks forward to her upcoming museum solo exhibition in South Korea in Fall of 2026 and artist residency in France in the summer of 2027.

​In September of 2026 she will be honored as a selected artist grant recipient for the Weapons of Light Foundation at their gala, which will include a curated meal by award-winning Chef Lionel Haeberle (Per Diem SF, Beat Bobby Flay) and performances curated by Shinji Eshima featuring San Francisco Symphony musicians. Join her studio newsletter for further details about future events and purchasing VIP tickets to the September gala.

MFA Painting, San Francisco Art Institute, 2013
​BFA Painting & Art Education, Arizona State University, 2010

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

My representational oil paintings prominently feature celebratory still life objects (sprinkles, confetti, star and flower beads, cheerful porcelain figurines), as I am curious about the practice of living a still life. My work contemplates the aliveness in all things - the exercise of noticing the subtle and connecting with the spiritual (aka the quantum field). The notion of, “What we focus on expands,” has directed the themes in my work to center around fun, joy and freedom. I employ rich color to induce these states of being. I utilize simple shapes and repeated compositions as a metaphor for the seemingly simple truths one encounters repeatedly while on the path of spiritual enlightenment. My luscious oil paintings operate within the realm of realism, as I am focused on gaining a deeper understanding about the nature of reality.
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During my time as a musician, it was often my role to hold the pitch while others tuned in partnership with my resonant frequency. With visual work I understand my practice as similar, but it is now an energetic vibration that the oil paintings must hold in order to guide in creating positive transformational experiences and aid in tuning global consciousness.

I aim to inspire others to let go of their fear in favor of creation, to surrender their personal victimhood narratives in exchange for empowerment and to release the illusion of a negative reality in service of personal freedom. Through my painting practice I have discovered that when your internal experience is clear of stress and you release yourself from the pressure to blend in with miserable surroundings, you begin to know yourself as joy. I cheer for the underdog, counting myself as one, and knowing our shared victory to be inevitable.