Vanesa Álvarez is a muralist and visual artist from the north of Spain based in Brooklyn.
With +20 years of experience, she has been selected in international competitions such as PintaMalasaña and The Flag Project at Rockefeller Center.
Vanesa Álvarez has created murals with social and feminist themes in Spain, Mexico, and New York City. Also, she has been an Artist in Residence through Project Art USA; and Teaching Artist for LEAP NYC’s Public Art Program.
Selected by the Arts in Medicine Program, NYC Health+Hospitals in 2021, her latest creations have been with Artbridge/ Bridging the Divide Project, Thrive Collective and The six foot platform (Dumbo).
She has also published three illustrated books for children in Spain and has painted clothes for artists (singers, theatre, dance), even having a collaboration with the Adolfo Dominguez brand in the InspirADos project.
During the last two years, Álvarez was one of the Su-casa program, Brooklyn Arts Council Artist in Residence and she painted the 2023 Union Square Asphalt mural, called Union with the universe with Union Square Partnership and DOT. Besides her public art, Vanesa is developing her studio practice, being recently one of the Kunstraum´s AIR creating the series Hábitat.
My work explores the power of the community, using color, illustrations, symbols, patterns, and words with a powerful message to reach the viewer’s heart in a direct way. Always transmitting values such as equality, ecology, and social justice.
I love to create new, inspiring spaces that can improve people’s lives and I truly believe that public art can change our way of thinking and relating, making us more empathetic beings and changing the world to be a better place.
With my studio practice I want to represent the voice of a mother, an immigrant and an artist, using for that wood canvases, my colorful style, sophisticated and architectonic geometry and a brush with movement and emotion.