Vanessa
Niederstrasser

BIO:

Vanessa Niederstrasser was born in Germany.

Currently, she is living in San Francisco, California. From 1996 to 2001, she studied Architecture at the University of Wuppertal. After graduation, she moved on to the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, where she first studied Architectural Arts with Laurids Ortner from 2001-2003, followed by Fine Arts with Irmin Kamp. She graduated in 2008 with a Master of Fine Art MFA and Honors.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

When I moved to America from Germany in 2011, I immediately noticed the diamond and star shapes that filled the landscape. I had always been interested in pointed forms, and my background in architecture led me to start using these shapes to create paintings with exact measurements and straight lines. The diamond and star have become my voice in this country. They are partially a response to my new environment here, and partially a continuance of my past.The diamond is a symbol of caution and is everywhere here: street signs, carpool signs, cones, pennants, marks on the street, manhole covers. I feel overloaded with warning signs. It feels overdone to me—protecting people from something. Sometimes I think these caution signs are making us dumb because we have lost the need to see danger for ourselves. The star is another great attention-grabber. It’s literally the symbol of the American obsession with individualism and self-determination: the star-spangled flag, the stars of Hollywood, the stars you find on lottery tickets. The star is our reminder that we’re this close to “making it”. It’s about striving and the self-consciousness that comes with it.My work takes these shapes out of their usual context and transfers them into something new to ask people to think for themselves again.The work is pushy and aggressive. I use diamond shapes to create fences of zigzags and ups and downs. I choose to use gray to calm this aggressiveness, and to show the calm, quiet nature of those who follow the warning signs. The stars are the stars of the work. They form the frame for the pattern of diamonds that fit cautiously, perfectly inside. Sometimes I make a sign out of my last name on the canvas. It represents my own search for identity in a new country. I am expected to follow the signs. I am expected not to question. So I use my art to help me navigate my new country and find my own detours around its symbols.