VanessaMurray

Vanessa Murray (b. 1999) is a queer artist from the inland valley of Rancho Cucamonga, California. Now based in Santa Cruz, California, Vanessa studies art alongside the natural world to further their creative visions and research as they focus on the intersectionality of nature, lineage, and transformative futures through an ecocentric lens of interactive sculpture and mixed media.

With the primary discipline of sculpture, Murray creates works that connect our relationship to nature through reclamation and ancestral acknowledgment as we navigate an alienated, capitalist world. These artworks display studies of living systems like succulents, marine life, and other organisms to inspire adaptation and resilience for a future filled with more sustainable practices. By reclaiming and using natural materials, Murray brings process-oriented art to the forefront of their practice to reflect the naturally occurring life cycle of all organic matter and create a dialogue between the present and the past.

Since 2015, Vanessa has been delving into various mediums like painting, digital art, and photography resulting in constant experimentation and evolution as an artist. Through this, they imagined a creative future and stepped into higher education to dedicate a life focusing on art. In 2017, they declared a major in Art and pursued a disciplinary focus in painting. In 2020, they graduated with three Associates in Studio Art, Art History, and University Studies of Arts and Humanities from Chaffey College with Scholar-Athlete Honors. Following that, Vanessa found a passion for sculpture in their undergraduate career, later graduating with a Bachelor’s in Studio Art from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2023 with Dean’s Honors. Since then, their goal has been to obtain a career in the arts field and contribute to the creative community for a more sustainable future.