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
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
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 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]
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