Vanessa Centeno

My art explores the love-hate relationship I have with our commodity driven society. On a day-to-day basis I am constantly arranging my being and the things around me to bring form and function into a system that demands value-exchange and productivity. I am interested in object arrangements and the contexts that can shift meaning and intent of a “thing." In my work, I manipulate the mundane and disregarded objects as a way to purge new meaning by way of ‘re-purposing’. Play is an important method in my studio practice, it gives me a window in which to engage a curious investigation of an object’s interior self and or existence. I am attracted to the dynamic roles that objects and things can represent in our day-to-day lives and how objects can contain mystical properties. I my studio, I question how I experience the ‘essence’, or, as I like to refer to as the ‘thingness’, of an object. I do believe that objects are reflective and can reveal more than what is at face value. I believe that objects contain extensions of our inner voids, fears and hopes.

I use painting, sculpture and video to question my experience with the materiality of canvas and paint. I incorporate plastic objects, glittery materials, and things that have ephemeral qualities. I am attracted to synthetic forms and objects, arranging them purposefully in my compositions. I want to push the viewer into a psychological place that brings humor, discomfort, beauty, and curiosity into a visual exploration of the failed attempts and struggles as humans. My process allows me to look closely at the social constructs and systems that bind us to this commodity driven market. I feel if we are to understand our current conditions, we must consider the impact and relevance of things in our material world. My compositions are an attempt to analyze and ultimately further define the multiple relationships between human will and the inanimate 'thing.'

Vanessa R. Centeno is a conceptual artist living and working in New Orleans. She obtained her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of New Orleans in 2014 and her Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005. Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas her cultural beliefs gave a colorful perspective towards iconographic objects and perceptions of religious mysteries. These perceptions moved toward society’s obsession with the slick digital conveniences and lure of the American dream. Her concepts delve into the modern dilemmas of consumerism and the compulsions of material trappings. She has a fascination with the superficiality of glittery and synthetic forms that result in alluring vibrant compositions. Using painting, sculpture and video as her mediums she communicates her version of contorted perceptions and irrelevance of our material world. Her work is part of the permanent art collection of the University of Texas, San Antonio. She has been a featured artist at Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Contemporary Art Center, NOLA and was recently awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Artist-in-Residence, summer 2017.