Fiona Joy McDermott is a Bay Area-based artist who works primarily in colored pencils and acrylic paints, and whose true love is bright and vibrant colors. Her style captures her dream-like perspective on the world, breaking down the organic patterns and rhythms of visual reality into a workable mosaic. Her drawings and paintings often explore themes of childhood, biological entanglement, and feminist views of how our bodies impact the ways in which we are socialized and perceived. She works especially with the many ways in which humanity ignores its animal identity, preferring to use the term “nonhuman animal” when referring to beings who aren’t human. She believes that the term “animal” has been misused to refer to lives that aren’t human and often somehow assumed to be lesser, despite the fact that we are all included in animalia. Fiona’s works have been exhibited in the shows Bodies of Evidence (2025), Two Doors (2025), and Figurative Realities (2024) all at the Worth Ryder Art Gallery. She was awarded a spot in the Advanced Studio Critique Program in fall of 2025, and is currently studying at the University of California, Berkeley in pursuit of a BA in Art Practice.