VANESSA VANEK
“This digital artwork combines two photographs: one of the plate glass windows in my apartment building, backlit in Christmas red and green, and the other of a flower from my grandparents’ garden. This flower holds special significance, as my grandfather witnessed a plate glass window falling on me at age eight, almost cutting me in half, just one day after Christmas in 1979.
I also incorporated open-source images of broken glass and spinal columns to reflect my childhood belief that this accident was a result of my Spina Bifida. This piece invites viewers to consider how traumatic experiences shape identity and encourages reflection on personal moments of pain and resilience. This incident ultimately led me to understand what it means to be a bruised reed.”
Vanessa Vanek is a fiber and digital media artist, as well as an art educator, originally from Lawrence, Kansas. She earned her BFA in Textile Design and a graduate teaching certificate in Visual Art Education from the University of Kansas. With over twenty-three years of teaching experience in middle and high school art and design, she has worked both in the United States and abroad, including Thailand, Korea, and East Africa. Living with Spina Bifida and using a wheelchair, Vanessa brings her personal experiences into both her teaching and her creative practice. She is now based in Shanghai, where she teaches art and design at an international high school while continuing to develop her own artwork.
Her art explores the deeply personal connections between identity, disability, and resilience. Through fiber works and digital pieces, she reflects on her journey with Spina Bifida and the challenges she has faced, often touching on themes of loss and trauma. Each piece tells a story about her own idea of “normal,” inviting viewers to reflect on the meaning of their own.
She works with techniques such as katazome, screen printing, photography, and digital layering to express these themes and to stay in dialogue with her physical reality. Vanessa hopes her work encourages others to see the beauty in their own imperfections and to embrace their unique sense of normal.
