Vanessa O'Brien is an undergraduate student at the New College of Florida, achieving a BA in psychology with a minor in art. Vanessa is currently studying to become an art therapist and is passionate about art as a medium for emotional, as well as self, expression. She believes that creativity should not be bound by arbitrary rules, which should only exist if you choose to create them.
Exploring the surreal and otherworldly, Vanessa embodies a spiritual perspective in all of her work, incorporating elements of the supernatural to illustrate the sublime in everyday experience, as well as the unnerving ineffability of existence and indeterminate reality.
Vanessa's primary medium is photography, though more recently she has begun to further develop skills using watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil as a result of a creative breakthrough experienced during the pandemic.
The works currently shown are an exploration into the medium of video art done in "Going Viral: Making Video Art for the Internet" taught by Professor Ryan Buyssens, a class that explores the digital medium and the ways in which it interacts with an online audience.