‘Paths Like Past’ Opening Reception
August 1 @ 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Vanessa Cunto will premiere a group of large-format drawings about the intersection of nature and human impact in shaping the future identity of the United States. A first-generation American with roots in Italy and Venezuela, Cunto’s self-taught technique uses graphite powder, specialized papers and original references that allows for hyper-realism.
Cunto is one of six artists Creative Pinellas selected to receive a 2026 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) America250 grant. We asked Cunto about her vision for Paths Like Past, and how she felt the works spoke to America’ 250th anniversary. Here’s an excerpt from what she shared:
“This work is an invitation to reimagine what technological progress could look like if we oriented it toward the natural world and the systems that are infallible, having sustained life for millennia, and that can support society far more sustainably when looking at the next 250 years.
America has always branded itself around the promise of a better future and it is central to the country’s identity. Two hundred and fify years feels like a natural moment to pause and ask what we are actually building toward, and whether the direction we are headed reflects the future we truly want.
The Y2K era was one expression of that quintessentially American optimism with the belief that technology and progress would deliver something better for everyone. This project looks back at that moment and asks what it would mean to carry that same hopefulness forward, but redirect it. Not toward unchecked technological growth, but toward a future that works with the natural world rather than against it. At 250 years, that feels like exactly the right question for America to be sitting with.”
Vanessa Cunto
Vanessa Cunto is a St. Petersburg-based visual artist specializing in detailed graphite drawings. A first-generation American with roots in Italy and Venezuela, she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Florida and went on to build a 15-year career as an art director and stylist — experience that deeply informs both the precision and compositional rigor of her fine art practice and her conceptual approach to the ideas behind it. Her work investigates the relationship between human-built…… Read More
