María Camila Cepeda (b. 1996) is a Colombian artist based in the UK. After a traditional education in painting and drawing in Bogotá, she moved to the UK to study a BA in Fine Art Sculpture in Leeds Arts University and an MA in Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art. With a keen interest on the way fiction portrays culture, Maria’s latest interest lies on animals and bestiaries, the way we have related and portrayed them, and what that also says about ourselves. In portraying her own animals, creatures and scenes she looks at merging representation and fictions from the Americas and Europe to create a cohesion of her lived experience in a globalised world. María was the Almacantar Award winner for the Slade School of Fine art in 2021 and one of three commissioned emerging artists for Leeds Arts University 2022 curatorial programme.