Vanessa Bravo is a mixed media artist who enjoys practicing in multiple materials and disciplines. Bravo is an avid movie fan whose eclectic tastes in music, TV, film and wider popular culture inform her work in sculpture, printmaking, drawing and fiber arts.
Working primarily in fabric and clay for her sculptures, Bravo keeps an ongoing list of sculpture ideas on her I-Pad to refer back to. For Bravo, “ideas just pop into my head.” In the past Bravo has frequently utilized the internet and Pinterest as a visual research tool, but in the future she wants to draw deeper inspiration from her own life experiences and imagination.
Bravo often creates original mono type prints, t-shirts and bags. Citing a sense of freedom in printmaking, she shares “I like how beauty is in the eye of the beholder in art. You can choose any colors you want, you can make anything you want.”
Working in ceramics Bravo prefers sculptures to creating pinch pots. Making pots can feel limiting to Bravo, which was related to a college class assignment. For Bravo working at NIAD is different to college related work since “there’s not pressure to do it ‘perfectly’ at NIAD and there’s more time to work longer on something.” She enjoys the possibilities of working with clay and remarks “when you’re working with clay you can shape it any way that you want.”
In the future Bravo aims to be more inventive in her practice, with the goal to make work with more personal content and to develop her own unique visual language further.
// Vanessa’s available work //
recent exhibition history
Into the Brightness: Artists from Creativity Explored, Creative Growth & NIAD // Oakland Museum of California // May 2023
NIAD Holiday Gift Guide #1: NIAD is for Animal Lovers ,organized by Dorian Reid // Online Exhibition // November 2022
What’s Cookin’?! ,organized by Terri Moore // NIAD Gallery Exhibition // November 2022
High Five, organized by Emma Spertus and Ember Avalos // NIAD Online Exhibition // June 2022
In Love., organized by Meg Pohlod // NIAD Online Exhibition // May 2022
Menagerie on 23rd Street, organized by Prajakti Jayavant // NIAD Windows Exhibition // December 2021
Holiday Gift Guide #6: Win Win 10 Sneak Preview, organized by Isabel Xilonen Ortiz // NIAD Online Exhibition // December 2021
Have/Hold, organized by Julia Schwartz NIAD Art Center // 2019
Ether Here Nor There: Anthony Grant x NIAD // NIAD Art Center // 2019
Hailing From Parts Unknown, organized By Curtis Turner NIAD Art Center // 2019
Exquisite Corpse: CG x CE x NIAD // NIAD Art Center // November 2018
Microcosmic, organized by Dawline-Jane Oni-Eseleh // NIAD Art Center // 2018
Woven, Mixed, Tied, and Attached: Fiber As Message, organized By Ramekon O’Arwisters // NIAD Art Center // April 2018
Handbills // NIAD Art Center // 2017
Collograph // Yali’s Cafe, Stanley Hall, Berkeley // 2017
Pillow Fight! // NIAD Art Center // 2016