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vanessa german

Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina

Round or marquise-shaped clear glass ornament-like vessels are affixed to a roughly human form in this free-standing sculpture. Much of the glass is striated, ribbed, or swirled, and where the head would be is a markeba, a three-dimensional, six-sided star.

The Dreaming Vessel

2026

A round, pink head made up of pieces of rose quartz and a short neck sit on a wood palette base in a gallery. The sculpture has wide eyes with flower-shaped pupils, a rounded nose with one nostril split away from the rest, and full, protruding lips. The base of the sculpture comes up to hip-height of a person standing next it, and the viewer’s face comes to the level of the sculpture’s nose.

The Witness

2024

The artist wears a voluminous blue gown and flowered headpiece as she pulls two ribbons attached to a long piece of sky-blue cloth. Words are written in all-capital, gold letters on the cloth, which is pulled over a structure like a parade float holding an abstracted mannequin with Marian Anderson’s face printed in blue-toned black and white.

THE BLUE WALK and Please imagine all that I cannot say

2023

This free-standing sculpture is made up of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of blue denim bundles bound tightly and hung like an oversized coat on a mannequin with a black and gold face. Two black hands hang from the ends of arms also made up of bulging pouches. The legs and feet are covered in layers of blue jeans, and the sculpture stands on a white-and-red striped base in a gallery with a concrete floor and white wall.

Sad Rapper

2023

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About vanessa german

vanessa is a Black artist with tightly curled, shoulder-length black hair. She wears a green cap, a pink handkerchief tied around her neck, and a button-down shirt covered with line drawings. She looks out at us in front of a white wall.
Photo by Charlie Rubin

vanessa german is a self-taught artist residing in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia. She creates sculptural “power figures” using wood, plaster, and found materials—from prayer beads and doll parts to quilts, cowrie shells, and glass. german describes these elements as “ingredients,” encompassing both physical and metaphysical dimensions. Her practice includes co-creative communal object-making and interactive performances that affirm the human spirit and act as living reservoirs of creative power. Since the early 2010s, german has created ritual-inflected works guided by intuition and a belief in the storytelling power of objects. She founded Love Front Porch (2011) and ARThouse (2014), cultivating spaces for collective creativity rooted in care, connection, and the human spirit.

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Fellowship, 2026

Website / Social Links

“ I make work that lives within an enduring lineage of power objects that exist as communicative power fields and living rituals of the ordinary sacred. Mine is an emergent practice that centers deep process while nourishing and invigorating communal conversation around ideas of spiritual justice and the living, distinct role of artists in a rapidly changing world.”