Ela Wasney is a Winnipeg-based artist working across text, sculpture, and material-based practices. Raised on a rural property near Garson, Manitoba, her work draws from the visual language of the countryside—handmade signs, religious references, and vernacular forms of communication—to explore class, belief, and rural identity.

Using found and reworked texts from roadside signage and everyday sources, Wasney gives language a physical presence, transforming fleeting statements into objects shaped by memory and personal history. Rooted in her working-class upbringing, her practice seeks to create points of connection, inviting rural communities to recognize themselves within contemporary art and find familiarity, vulnerability, and reflection in shared experience.