Vanessa Bernal
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Biography
Vanessa Bernal was born in Chicago, IL. in 1972, of Cuban and Guatemalan parents. She is an artist whose talent emerged at an early age. Her precociously expressive abstract creations were framed and collected by family and friends of her artistic family. Her paternal grandfather and aunt encouraged Vanessa to acquire a fine arts education; they are artists who taught art and were proprietors of art galleries in Chicago in the late 1960s through the early 1980s. An example of the exceptional, early manifestation of her creativity can be seen in Napoléon, 1975, a watercolor on paper that she painted at the age of three. That painting was exhibited in 1979 at Bernal Gallery, and is presently displayed in the art collection of her grandfather, Jose Bernal. Many other distinguished private collections in the U.S.A. and Central America are graced by the art of Vanessa Bernal.
Vanessa's artistic talent was constantly nurtured and her works of art evolved out of the influence and inspiration from her family environment, travels in Latin America, Canada, and the U.S.A., her art studies, and frequent visits to the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago, and various other art museums and art galleries in and around the Chicago area. Once her formal art education was completed at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 2003, she ceaselessly has dedicated herself to her professional art career in Cocoa Beach, FL. where she now resides.
The art work of Vanessa Bernal may be best described as vividly painted neo-expressionism. Her visual vocabulary of bold, symbolic colors, shapes, and expressive brushstrokes represent a vital contemporary vision of women in our society. Although in her drawings and paintings one perceives the inevitable and necessary influence of 20th century masters and of those who have emerged in the still nascent 21st century, one is struck by her coherent application and internalization of influential art movements into her personal and original oeuvre. Written by Alexis Schneider