Miss Van

Miss Van (born in 1973 in Toulouse, France, as Vanessa Alice Bensimon and also known as Vanessa Castex) is a graffiti and street artist. Miss Van started painting on the street of Toulouse alongside Mademoiselle Kat at the age of 18. Today, she is now internationally known as a street and fine artist. Primarily, her work is marked by the use of unique characters, called poupées, or dolls. Miss Van's work has appeared on streets internationally, although she also exhibits canvases in galleries across France, Europe and the United States. Today, her work is characterized by both street art and fine art, blurring the lines between both worlds.

Miss Van currently resides in Barcelona, Spain. From Barcelona, she has written and published several books with the publishing house Drago and coordinated several art shows across Europe. She remains one of the most famous female street and graffiti artists in the world, recognized as one of the top figures in early 21st-century street art canon.

In her artwork, Miss Van typically depicts sloe-eyed women, covering a varied array of female forms and expressing many different emotions. Common themes in her work include eroticism, sexuality, desire and innocence which are represented by animal masks, pastel colors, and revealing clothing. Miss Van's work illustrates a cartoonish, dream-like world of female sexuality. Over time the stylization of the women has changed, reflecting Miss Van's artistic and personal evolution as she has grown and matured. This change is paralleled in Miss Van's increased preference for the gallery over the street. In the gallery, Miss Van embraces enclosed and intimate space gallery space as part of the artistic experience .

Between 2008 and 2016, Miss Van exhibited artwork in many private galleries across the globe. In Asia, she has held a show in Shanghai. In Europe, she has exhibited in London, Rome, Berlin, Paris and Vienna. In North America, she has held shows in Detroit, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Montreal, Chicago and New York. Several Notable Shows include, Still a Little Magic at Upper Playground, San Francisco in 2008; Cachetes Colorados at Upper Playground, Mexico City in 2010; and A Moment in Time at Saatchi Gallery, London in 2016. The same year, Miss Van also showed at the Atmossphere Biennale in Moscow, Russia, where she exhibited a woven wool rug based on an original painting.

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