Interview

Sep 28

Vanessa Onuk

Vanessa Onuk was born and grew up in and around Frankfurt am Main. While she was fortunate throughout her entire childhood to grow up with an artist as an uncle and to be supported in this area at school, her professional path initially took her into medicine. In 2022, she began to take her painting to a professional level. While she had a clear vision from the start regarding the technique of her pictures - using acrylic paint at different levels of wetness to achieve layers in different textures and strong color gradients and bleeding colors - the question of how to achieve this goal arose early on.

So, she began to follow her inner scientist and experimented with different canvas substrates to achieve the desired result. Since then, she has worked almost exclusively on pure, unprimed linen. This allows for the perfect mix of bleeding colors, random gradients and precise applications. Individual differences can always be achieved through different thicknesses, resulting in a unique vintage finish. Over the last year, she has been fortunate enough to be nominated for the Finalist Awards in three art competitions as well as being featured in several magazines and art magazines, including spotlight magazine. She will also take part in her first group exhibition in Berlin at the end of the year and have her art represented in a respected online gallery.

What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?

“My relationship with art goes back to my childhood. Like many people, I drew and painted throughout my entire childhood, but I was lucky enough to have an uncle who was and is a great painter. He taught me perspective drawing in my early childhood, how to capture shapes and silhouettes with my own eyes so that I could then represent them on paper or abstract them. Despite my early access to art, I chose a different path in life. I am a qualified doctor, run a practice with my husband and have three children. In 2022 I started painting again for my own pleasure and was soon encouraged by family, friends from the art scene and positive feedback from social media to make my works public. Since then, I'm slowly building my own brand, experimenting with different canvas material and have achieved my own abstract style to paint and layer colors.”

What does your work aim to say? Does it comment on any current social or political issues?

“My works do not contain any clear statements, criticism or anything similar regarding political and social issues. However, in recent years I have increasingly noticed - not least through my children - how our perception of it is changing in a world that is becoming ever faster and more digital. My abstract landscapes are intended to capture a moment in which we want to linger because the sight, the light, the color or the silhouette of an environment captivates us and we want to absorb it. My own observation of my works is not about subtleties and details, but rather I reduce them to shapes, colors and feelings. The details arise from previous experiences and memories of the viewer themselves; our minds are always looking for associations and connections with what we have already experienced, so that looking at the images offers a - sometimes - unique experience for the viewer. The intuition of my pictures is to give the viewer a framework, the emotions and memories with which the viewer associates them arise individually.”

Do you plan your work in advance, or is it improvisation?

“My pictures always contain a mixture of rough planning and free flow of thought. The first thing that is usually decided is the mood of the picture. I try to achieve this more through color combinations and their application than through the actual motif of my pictures.”

Are there any art world trends you are following?

“The word “trend” is always difficult for me to define because I have lived my entire life constantly past almost all “trends” and that is precisely why I believe I have never lost my individuality. I firmly believe that art as a part of myself should not be subject to any specific trend, as this always leads to a transformation into the generic and undermines one's own individuality. However, as an abstract painter, I am happy about the increasing trend towards abstract images, which gives me new freedom for my art and makes it interesting for a larger audience.”

What process, materials and techniques do you use to create your artwork?

“Since my technique consists of applying liquefied acrylic paint on a difficult to predict surface - pure, unprimed linen - the color gradient and the creation of a silhouette is always an exciting mix of technique and chance: I give the idea a rough form (color, viscosity of the color and density of the substrate) and the result is always different and absolutely individual for each piece of art.”

“My abstract landscapes are intended to capture a moment in which we want to linger because the sight, the light, the color or the silhouette of an environment captivates us and we want to absorb it.”

What does your art mean to you?

“First and foremost, it is a reflection of my personal feelings and collected life experiences and impressions and therefore always a very personal goal of mine. But as already mentioned: For me, the magic mostly comes from viewing it by third parties who bring in their own interpretations. For me, this process is the most exciting thing about my work and art in general.”