Vanessa Dorothea is an Indonesian artist currently based in Bali, working across charcoal drawing, oil painting, and decorative ceramics. Her practice explores the symbolic language of dreams and poetry, weaving personal narratives with emotional states and the subconscious. Art has been part of Vanessa’s life from a young age, she began drawing lessons at six in Jakarta and was producing paintings by high school. After an initial path in architecture and digital multimedia design, followed by a year working as a graphic designer, she turned fully toward painting. Her artistic development continued in London, where she studied painting and deepened her commitment to the medium.

The cities of Jakarta and London remain strong influences in her work. Profoundly inspired by the force of nature, Vanessa draws parallels between her own emotional shifts and the intensity of the natural world. Artists like Leonor Fini and Georgia O’Keeffe inform her sensibility, especially their ability to channel personal emotion into symbolic and sensuous forms. Traveling frequently, she views movement and change as essential to her creative process. Vanessa’s work often blends figurative and abstract elements, and her ambition lies in mastering painting through traditional techniques while expressing her inner world with immediacy and freedom.