Vanessa works in multilayer linocut, creating sumptuous yet subtle works that combine the delicacy of oil painting with clean, layered relief printing.
She is interested in the behaviour of light falling on or through form and how the balance of colour and tone evokes three-dimensional space. In more recent works, refraction of light has become a focus, with her images exploring the interplay between the symmetry of glass vessels and the discordant tangles of stems of home-grown flowers distorted through and interacting with orderliness.
Vanessa has always sketched on dark brown paper, enjoying the light emerging from the surface, working tonally in reverse to normal white paper drawing. This mimics the carving of negative space in the relief printing process and helps her ponder the possibilities that will emerge during the creation of a new linocut. She prints at her home in Norfolk.
Vanessa studied Graphics and Illustration at Brighton Polytechnic. She has exhibited with the Norwich Print Fair since 2012, and also multiple times in the Society of Wood Engravers annual exhibition. Her work has been commissioned for book covers and internal illustrations and she has exhibited widely, including two solo exhibitions in the UK.