Vanessa German

Vanessa German (b.1976) is an American sculptor, painter, writer, activist, performer, and poet based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Her sculpture often includes assembled statues of female figures created with their heads/ faces painted black and a wide range of attached objects flowing outward including fabric, keys, found objects, and toy weapons.

Her work is held in numerous permanent collections including the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and has been reviewed by Sculpture and discussed in The New York Times,O, The Oprah Magazine, and on NPR's All Things Considered. Her art has been featured in a wide range of galleries, museums and traveling exhibits, including the 2012 "African American Art 1950-Present" touring exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution. She was a 2015 recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant.

Vanessa German was born in Wisconsin and raised in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles and Loveland, Ohio by her mother, a fiber artist, quilter and costume maker. She is the third of five children. She moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2000 and began to perform and exhibit her work locally. She describes her work as heavily influenced by her childhood in Los Angeles, where her mother encouraged the children to make their own clothes, and she was also impacted by the AIDS epidemic and drive-by shootings.

A self-taught artist, much of German's artwork is collage and sculpted assemblages. German's sculptural work frequently includes female figures that she calls "power figures" and "tar babies". She creates them by decorating and painting large dolls and figures, then sculpting outward, and adding a wide range of materials including, for example cowrie shell lips, plastic guns, feathers, bottle caps, seashells, toys, and vintage products. She often uses found and donated materials from her Homewood neighborhood. She describes discovering that her work included elements similar to the central African tradition of nkisi nkondi, guardian statues pierced with nails and other materials.

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