Miss Van, who is also known as Vanessa Alice, is a graffiti and street artist, who in recent years as her work has become more widely known has made the transition to paintings displayed in galleries. She grew up in Toulouse in southern France, and started working alongside her mentor Mademoiselle Kat at the age of eighteen to create large-scale street paintings.

Her work is characterised by the use of unique characters, which she sometimes calls poupées or dolls, covering a varied array of female forms expressing many different emotions. Common themes in her work include eroticism, desire and innocence, often represented by animal masks, pastel colours, and revealing clothing, brought together in a cartoonish, dream-like world of female sexuality.

Over time the stylisation of her women has changed, reflecting Miss Van’s artistic and personal evolution as she has grown and matured. She currently lives and works in Barcelona, and has written and published several books with the publishing house Drago.

She remains one of the best-known female street and graffiti artists in the world, exhibiting in galleries in Shanghai, London, Rome, Berlin, Paris and Vienna. In North America she has held shows in Detroit, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Montreal, Chicago and New York, notable exhibitions including Still a Little Magic in San Francisco, in 2008; Cachetes Colorados in Mexico City in 2010; and A Moment in Time at the Saatchi Gallery in London in 2016.

Miss Van’s website, where she shows current work and details about exhibitions, can be found here.

We are very grateful to our Russian friend Yuri for introducing us to the work of this artist, and for supplying most of the images.