Issis Macias, a self-taught artist and daughter of Mexican immigrants, was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. In 2020, amid the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and a significant career shift, she became a new mother and embraced her art as a means of healing. Primarily working with acrylic and oil pastels on canvas, her intuitive abstraction style, brought to life through vibrant colors, explores the spectrum of human experience, transforming the deeply personal into the universal. Now based in Madison, Wisconsin, Macias continues to maintain strong ties to Los Angeles through various artistic collaborations.
Macias is a recipient of the Micaela Salinas Artist Fellowship sponsored by Latinos Organizing for Understanding and Development in Madison, WI. She was a finalist for the 2023 Forward Art Prize, presented by the Women Artists Forward Fund, has been accepted into the 2023-2025 Bridge Work Program at Arts + Literature Laboratory in Madison, and is a member of the Madison Art Guild. Her work is held in private collections across the U.S., Mexico, and Europe.