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Miss Van

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Miss Van
Artwork by Miss Van on a wall of La Boqueria in Ciutat Vella, Barcelona
Born
Vanessa Alice

1973 (age 50–51)
Toulouse, France
Known forPoupées
StyleFeminine
MovementStreet art
Websitemissvan.com

Miss Van (born 1973 in Toulouse, France), also known as Vanessa Alice, is a graffiti and street artist.[1][2] Miss Van started painting on the street of Toulouse alongside Mademoiselle Kat at the age of 18. Today, she is now internationally known as a street and fine artist. Primarily, her work is marked by the use of unique characters, called poupées, or dolls.[3] Miss Van's work has appeared on streets internationally, although she also exhibits canvases in galleries across France, Europe and the United States.[1] Today, her work is characterized by both street art and fine art, blurring the lines between both worlds.[4]

Miss Van currently resides in Barcelona and has written and published several books with the publishing house Drago and coordinated several art shows across Europe.[5] She remains one of the most famous female street and graffiti artists in the world, recognized as one of the top figures in early 21st-century street art canon.[6]

Artwork

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Miss Van with El Bocho's Little Lucy, Berlin 2009

In her artwork, Miss Van typically depicts sloe-eyed women, covering a varied array of female forms and expressing many different emotions.[7] Common themes in her work include eroticism, sexuality, desire and innocence which are represented by animal masks, pastel colors, and revealing clothing.[2][4] Miss Van's work illustrates a cartoonish, dream-like world of female sexuality.[8] Over time the stylization of the women has changed, reflecting Miss Van's artistic and personal evolution as she has grown and matured.[8] This change is paralleled in Miss Van's increased preference for the gallery over the street.[8] In the gallery, Miss Van embraces enclosed and intimate gallery space as part of the artistic experience .[8]

Between 2008 and 2016, Miss Van exhibited artwork in private galleries in Shanghai, London, Rome, Berlin, Paris and Vienna.[4] In North America, she has held shows in Detroit,[9] Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Montreal, Chicago and New York.[4] Notable shows include, Still a Little Magic at Upper Playground, San Francisco in 2008; Cachetes Colorados at Upper Playground, Mexico City in 2010; and A Moment in Time at Saatchi Gallery, London in 2016.[4] The same year, Miss Van also showed at the Atmossphere Biennale in Moscow, where she exhibited a woven wool rug based on an original painting.[10]

Critical reception

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Thematically, her work has provoked a negative reaction from some feminists due to the portrayal of women in her graffiti.[1] Although she receives this backlash, her reasoning for her painting is more personal. "Painting on walls was a way to show that I was boycotting the conventional art world".[11] Despite negative critique of her work, some critics perceive her portrayal of sexuality and feminity as a powerful rejection of male supremacy and male-dominated art.[8] Her work is also appreciated for centering women and increasing the representation of women in street art.[8] Furthermore, the depiction of a full-figured female form in Miss Van's work is representative of body positive politics.[12] Miss Van is regarded as one of the most famous female graffiti and street artists in the world, a genre that is generally considered as having few female artists.[12]

In 2013, Miss Van painted a street art piece with collaborators depicting what is commonly referred to as "Blackface." She faced a string of criticism on her personal instagram account as a white European woman appropriating the culture of Black Americans. Despite personal pleas of people of color, the artist chose to delete and censor their posts, causing even more of a disruption.

In 2016, Miss Van held her first institutional art show at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga in Spain, titled "For The Wind in My Hair."[2] The show featured 39 original paintings on canvas. Artnet News calls the show as "interesting discourse between the worlds of fine art and street art."[2] Miss Van also displays how meaning changes between these two artistic sites, the street and the gallery.[8]

Publications

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Books

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  • Wild at Heart (2012) Drago
  • Twinkles (2011) Drago

Books with contributions by Miss Van

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Exhibits

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2014 – Miss Van: Glamorous Darkness, StolenSpace Gallery, London – Solo Show

2014 – Spectrum: Winter Group Show, StolenSpace Gallery, London – Group Show

2014 – Art Truancy: Celebrating 20 Years of Juxtapoz Magazine, Johnathan LeVine Projects – Group Show

2014 – StolenSpace Gallery at SCOPE Miami Beach 2014 – Fair

2015 – The Reasons for the Seasons, StolenSpace Gallery, London – Group Show

2015 – FESTIN DE ARTE at Isabelle Croxatto Galleria, Isabelle Croxatto Galleria, Santiago – Group Show

2015 – 'Freedom' a Group Show, StolenSpace Gallery, Berlin – Group Show

2015 – FIFTY24MX at LA Art Show 2015 – Fair

2016 – Ch. ACO'16, Isabel Croxatto Galería, Santiago – Group Show

2016 – Isabel Croxatto Galeria at Contemporary Istanbul 2016, Şişli – Fair

2017 – Flor de Piel, Victor Lope Arte Contemporaneo, Barcelona – Solo Show

2017 – Welcome to New Jersey, Jonathan LeVine Projects, Jersey City – Group Show

2017 – Isabel Croxatto Galeria at Art Central 2017 – Fair

References

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  1. ^ a b c "SWINDLE Magazine Interview with Miss Van". Archived from the original on 2011-05-18. Retrieved 2007-06-16.
  2. ^ a b c d "Miss Van's First Museum Show Opens in Malaga – artnet News". artnet News. 2016-06-24. Retrieved 2017-03-20.
  3. ^ Waclawek, Anna (2008). From graffiti to the street art movement : negotiating art worlds, urban spaces, and visual culture, c. 1970–2008 (phd). Concordia University, Phd Thesis.
  4. ^ a b c d e Villarreal, Ignacio. "Miss Van's first show at a museum on view at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo of Málaga". artdaily.com. Retrieved 2017-03-20.
  5. ^ The Dolls of Miss Van. Fornarina Fashion News @ CourtureCandy.com Archived 2007-12-16 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Glaser, Katja (2015). "The 'Place to Be'for Street Art Nowadays is no Longer the Street, its the Internet" (PDF). Street Art and Urban Creativity Scientific Journal. 1 (2).
  7. ^ Miss Van gallery
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Premont, Chantal (2013-04-28). "Miss Van and the Evolution of the Feminine from Brick onto Canvas". CUJAH. Archived from the original on 2017-04-05. Retrieved 2017-04-04.
  9. ^ DeVito, Lee. "Murals in the Market artists address Shepard Fairey, Detroit, and more in inaugural fest". Detroit Metro Times. Retrieved 2017-03-20.
  10. ^ Harrington, Jaime Rojo & Steven (2016-09-28). "A Moscow Street Art Biennale: Artmossphere 2016". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-04-04.
  11. ^ MissVan.com
  12. ^ a b Porteous, Freyia Lilian. "Weekly Style Muse: Miss Van's Painted Ladies, Body Pos Pinups With Attitude". Retrieved 2017-04-04.
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