Vanessa Powers is a figurative artist whose work addresses excess, mortality, ecological crisis, the impact trauma has on the individual, and how that translates into the collective consciousness of our culture. Her work examines the traditional Western philosophy of the obscenity of nature, its imagined separation from us, and our futile attempt to hold dominion over it. Powers layers these themes in subconscious and emotional impulses throughout her oil paintings and sculptures. Reoccurring motifs in her work include smiley face plastic bags asphyxiating the subject, elements of her interest in biology, and dead bodies draped in decoratively patterned sheets. 

Powers received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and currently lives and works in New York.