Ahndraya Parlato was born in Kailua, Hawaii in 1979. In 2002 she received a B.A. from Bard College, where she majored in photography; and in 2005 she graduated from California College of the Arts with an M.F.A. Her work consists of large-format, color photographs that explore the distinctions between banality and normalcy, and the ways in which people impose structures and ideals on the world. Ahndraya has lectured at California College of the Arts, in San Francisco, and is currently teaching at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York.