Мисс Ван: от улиц до галерей и спорные работы

French painter

Miss Van (born 1973 in Toulouse, France), also known as Vanessa Alice, is a graffiti and street artist. 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. Miss Van's work has appeared on streets internationally, although she also exhibits canvases in galleries across France, Europe and the United States. 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. 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.

In her artwork, Miss Van typically depicts sloe eyed women, covering a varied array of female forms and expressing many different emotions. Common themes in her work include eroticism, sexuality, desire and innocence which are represented by animal masks, pastel colors, and revealing clothing. Over time the stylization of the women has changed, reflecting Miss Van's artistic and personal evolution as she has grown and matured. Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Montreal, Chicago and New York.

Thematically, her work has provoked a negative reaction from some feminists due to the portrayal of women in her graffiti. 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. 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. 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." 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." Miss Van also displays how meaning changes between these two artistic sites, the street and the gallery.