In her paintings and performances, Vanessa Mitter is interested in interrogating the history, particularly, of Expressionist painting and of the gesture. The making is very physical. The canvas is moved around, laid on the floor, then the wall, often remade or scored over, obliterated and then painted over again. Often, paintings are buried underneath other paintings. There is a narrative being referenced, but it is often hidden and autobiographical. Mitter uses layers of paint and collage, overlaid then with pen and oil stick. The making is instinctive and accident driven, often teetering on the edge of what she believes is abject failure. This tightrope is important. The painting has its own life, and leads the way. Mitter views this as a process of alchemy; a transformative process.
Alice Butler (Frieze Writer’s Prize Winner, 2012) writes that: ‘In Vanessa Mitter’s paintings, the personal is treated as a pliant material, a source of affect and investigation, but also of fiction and performance. Collage, paint and pigment find a way onto the canvas in ephemeral expressive gestures. There is an abject narrative at play – of childbirth, loss, fertility/infertility – but it is a narrative that wanders in and around the artifice of the material’ and ‘The textural ways in which Mitter appropriates her own work, working and re-working the surface, with the addition of a swathe of fabric, a ripped sheet of paper, or an expressive gesture of paint, becomes a signifier of the passing of time’.

Vanessa Mitter
On Fertile Ground – Implosion, 2021
Oil and pen on canvas
130 cm x 95 cm
Price Available Upon Request
© Vanessa Mitter

Vanessa Mitter
On Fertile Ground – Hybrid, 2021
Oil on canvas
130 cm x 95 cm
Price Available Upon Request
© Vanessa Mitter

Vanessa Mitter
Hysteria, 2021
Oil on canvas
150 cm x 120 cm
Price Available Upon Request
© Vanessa Mitter
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Artist Profile
Education
MA – Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art, UAL, London, England, 2010
Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art, UAL, London, England, 2009
BA Honours Fine Art – Painting, Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design, UAL, London, England
BTEC Higher National Diploma – Foundation Studies in Art and Design, Kingston University, Surrey, England
Solo Exhibitions
2017
Arthouse1 Gallery, I Am A Beautiful Monster, London, England
2016
Unit G Gallery, Unquiet Brides, London, England
Group Exhibitions
Goose Summer online exhibition, curated by Hannah Murgatroyd and Martyn Cross, London
With Love, Paint Talk online exhibition, curated by Mark Connolly
Objects of Desire, ASC Project Space, London
This Year’s Model, Studio 1.1 Gallery, London
Mother Art Prize, Mimosa House, London
Creekside Open, selected by Brian Griffiths, APT Gallery, London
Rules of Freedom, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London
Lore of the Land, curated by David Harrison, Churchgate Gallery, Somerset
Frivolous Convulsions, Turf Projects, Croydon
You Are Here, Stockport War Memorial Museum, Manchester
Awards, Fellowships, and Grants
2018
Mother Art Prize, London – shortlisted
2017
The Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize, London – shortlisted
2015
Hackney Wicked Art Prize, London – joint winner
2010
Red Mansion Foundation Art Prize, London – shortlisted
Gilbert de Botton Art Prize, London – shortlisted
Press
Mother Art Prize catalogue
You Are Here catalogue
Lore of the Land Catalogue
Frivolous Convulsions catalogue (Arts Council funded)
Cadaverous in Croydon, review by Paul Carey-Kent
Death Animated, review of Frivolous Convulsions by Tom Carrao
Strange Attraction Catalogue
Frieze Magazine review of de Kooning de Kooning de Kooning
Works

Vanessa Mitter
On Fertile Ground – Implosion, 2021
Oil and pen on canvas
130 cm x 95 cm
Price Available Upon Request
© Vanessa Mitter

Vanessa Mitter
On Fertile Ground – Hybrid, 2021
Oil on canvas
130 cm x 95 cm
Price Available Upon Request
© Vanessa Mitter

Vanessa Mitter
Hysteria, 2021
Oil on canvas
150 cm x 120 cm
Price Available Upon Request
© Vanessa Mitter