Vanessa is a Florida native and local artist here in the city of St. Petersburg. She has always placed creativity at the core of her life, from her formative years through her education and into her personal and professional endeavors. Vanessa holds a Fine Arts degree from the University of Florida, with a specialized focus on painting; and in her professional career, she has worked as an Art Director.
Her current body of work consists of intricate graphite drawings inspired by the still life genre of the Dutch Golden Age. This genre served as a lens through which to scrutinize the burgeoning capitalist Dutch Republic and the opulent wealth that accompanied it.
In our contemporary world, capitalism continues to dominate, driven by the pursuit of limitless profits obtained from finite resources. The relentless demand for manufacturing material goods exacts a toll on both humanity and our planet, further exacerbating the global climate crisis—a challenge that Florida is far from insulated from.
Much like the seventeenth-century Dutch still life paintings, which conveyed warnings of capitalist excess through symbolic imagery, Vanessa employs these same visual references in her drawings. This endeavor strives to sustain the exploration of consumption within a capitalist society, with the aspiration of nurturing a culture that coexists harmoniously with nature’s wealth, rather than depleting it.
