She was sixteen when she first saw it; a simple V symbol on the wall of a lift, pointing down like an arrow. Something about it intrigued her. She took a photo, added a question mark on the caption, and pressed post. What began as a quiet moment of intuition eventually became a signature. Vanessa, also known as V, marks her work with the same V?, a symbol that has come to reflect the heart of her practice: identity as an open question, continuously taking new shape.

During the early days of the pandemic, V was studying psychology and philosophy, set on a path to become a pyschologist. But the stillness of lockdown created unexpected space, and in that space, she began to paint. What started as a quiet outlet quickly grew into something more intentional. Without the pressure to produce anything realistic or academic, she leaned into a freer approach—painting by intuition rather than logic. Her path into art became an outlet of freedom without structure.

“It was just intuition”, she says, that quiet process became the foundation of her current style— one that resists predictability, embraces spontaneity, and welcomes contradiction

Color, for V?, is not just a visual choice—it’s her language. She’s drawn to childlike pastels and vibrant hues, often paired with muted, earthy tones in unexpected combinations. Her compositions follow a quiet rule: if something feels too logical, she goes in the opposite direction. “I’ll always choose the second or third idea,” she explains. “It has to surprise me somehow.” The result is work that feels both spontaneous and deliberate, abstract and grounded—mirroring the tension she often explores between playfulness and decay, stillness and emotion.

This aesthetic philosophy finds its clearest metaphor in how she describes her favorite visual spaces: abandoned bathhouses with faded tiles and worn murals. “There’s this sense of care and tenderness in those spaces,” she says. “They were built for people to take care of themselves. But at the same time, they’ve been left behind. There’s whimsy, but also emptiness. That’s how my art feels to me.” In many ways, her work captures what it means to hold softness and survival at once, to find beauty in both dark and bright places at the same time.

While her early work was largely abstract, a six-month residency in Tokyo nudged her practice in a new direction. It was there that she discovered screen printing and developed a fascination with flat, 2D forms—Hello Kitty, Winx Club, and other icons of girlhood nostalgia. “It kind of formed my appreciation for girlhood,” she says. “That era of animation, of early 2000s aesthetics, it felt like a language of intimacy.” What began as playful references evolved into deeper explorations of identity, self-care, and femininity—leading her to develop a larger body of work around the emotional landscape of being a girl in the 21st century.

“Girlhood isn’t just pink and soft,” she says. “It’s filled with contradictions.” Her upcoming exhibition in New York dives deeper into those complexities—touching on intimacy, memory, and the quiet chaos of becoming. Through flattened characters, unexpected palettes, and the use of negative space, she captures what isn’t always said, but deeply felt. Among her inspirations are directors like Makoto Shinkai, who balances surreal landscapes with tender emotion, and movements like Superflat, coined by Takashi Murakami. She also spent time studying traditional Japanese ink painting (sumi-e), which reinforced her belief in the power of simplicity.

“With sumi-e, you try to say as much as you can with as little as possible,” she shares. “I’ve taken that into my own work—using less to say more.”
V’s take on modern girlhood in her upcoming exhibition is all about subtleness, intuition, and layered with contradictions. In her world, identity is never just one thing: color tells stories words can’t, and even the most playful symbols carry weight. The V? at the corner of her canvas may have started as a teenage curiosity—but today, it’s an invitation. To feel. To question. To find meaning in what’s left unsaid.