Vanessa Stockard (b. 1975) is a contemporary artist working and living in the NSW Southern Highlands with her husband Will, a photographer, their daughter Isobel and two Maine Coon cats: Barcode and Satan. Vanessa made her exhibiting debut in the UK during the May 2024 edition of Affordable Art Fair in Hampstead.
Themes in Vanessa’s work present her subconscious interpretation of the delicacies and absurdities of life in juxtaposition with images she drew from film, art, literature and the natural world. Life is beautiful, but also hard in so many ways. Vanessa is able to touch upon some of the greatest existential questions, human sanity and the good and the evil with a cleverly humorous overlay. By introducing the feline anthropomorphic characters of Kevin the kitten, his father Satan, Barcode, and others, Vanessa presents deeply symbolic, yet fun, dream-like imagery that enchants a viewer of any age. Vanessa’s oeuvre consists of puzzles from the saga of Kevin and his family: whether a mythological allegory, a homage to an old master, Vanessa created a trademark pop-surrealist gimmick and her instantly recognisable artistic mannerism.
