Vanessa Paulina presents the inner goddesses, who make the sun come up at night
By Rona Coster Bati bleki
Vanessa Paulina presents the inner goddesses, who make the sun come up at night
Last Friday, the tree just outside the Museum Historico Aruba, played host to a modest happy hour VRIJMIBO, Vrijdag MIddag Borrel, given by the museum and made possible by generous sponsors such as Romar Trading, the Aruba Chamber of Commerce and High Performance.
The guest of honor, local artist Vanessa Paulina is well known in our community for her very cute and life-like paintings of her siblings and cousins as kids, growing up in San Nicholas, playing in the dirt in the front yard, with the chicken, barefoot and happy. The paintings, part of Vanessa’s Childhood Memory series, and another series, Indigo Kids, depicting the same subject matter in monotone, blue, endeared Vanessa to her island community, and shaped her signature style which is both naïve and sophisticated at the same time.
She then went to a darker place and presented us with the Schizophrenic series, depicting the dualities of her own personality, the dark side and the bright side, the hurt and the healing, actually slicing her canvases in two and stitching them back together, showing the scars. The paintings are deep and layered and are filled with symbolism drawn from ancestral sources, from Indian, black and white mythologies.
In the space in between collections, Vanessa explored her Caribbean heritage and created the famous Virginia, a brave, beautiful, rebellious and tragic Aruban slave, whose life story represents the struggle of Caribbean women over the ages.
Vanessa is quick to give her time to youth art projects and murals in the public domain and as of recently to a series of art courses, Soul Art, in which she showed her students that when they “connect with their spirits, they connect with their genius.”
Her latest works presented under the tree and against the historic walls of Fort Zoutman explored her inner goddesses, so far just four of them, as she searches her different incarnations through the ages, and the different roles she played in the universe, starting with her Egyptian self, her arch angel self and her island princess self. True to her original love to fabrics and colors, she even painted her own gown for the VRIJMIBO, and put on display some of her favorite books, crystals, earth samples, souvenirs from her childhood, her tarot cards, and the best compliment she ever received, framed, “You Make the Sun Come Up at Night.”
VRIJMIBO is a monthly recurring afternoon drink event hosted at Museum Fort Zoutman, and organized by Joase-Ann van der Biest, Manager, Museo Historico Arubano. Every last Friday of the month, this gathering brings together entrepreneurs and the art/cultural world. Starting at 5:00pm, you can meet and network with other business professionals, share ideas with other startups, and exchange views with established entrepreneurs.
Goddess Chak Chel
Vanessa Paulina does “Soul Art”
Written by Gina Jie Sam Foek
Vanessa Paulina is a local visual artist, illustrator and fashion designer. Vanessa recently offered a workshop Soul Art to a group of 13 women. All 13, with an enormous enthusiasm to explore their creativity in a new way. This group meets every week in the spacious storeroom of the restaurant ‘Life is beautiful’ located at Aqua Windies to work on their special projects.
Soul Art connects you with your spirit. When you connect with your spirit you are connecting with your genius, your wisdom and your inner guidance system, this is how true healing and transformation is activated.
Soul ‘intuitive’ Art according to Vanessa is “a spiritual creative awakening. You tap into your active imagination and intuitive intelligence. The process itself is the value and most interesting, opposed to the end result. While experiencing acts
Vanessa Paulina does “Soul Art”
Written by Gina Jie Sam Foek
of healing, empowerment, beauty and heart connection. The process of making an artwork can be healing.”
ALX sat down with Vanessa after the workshop for a conversation.
Why did you want to do Soul art with this group?
“I had a desire to pass this on for a while but because of circumstances I couldn’t get to it earlier. I had to take care of my mother, she wasn’t well and other things got in the way and before I knew it a year passed. That’s why I was so happy with this opportunity to get it started. I have my ‘Childhood series’ and I wanted to do a combination with that. It is a spiritual journey and not everyone is open to it and in that way it is an experiment, but, I was ready to try it.”
How has Soul art helped you?
In a way, I think I have always practiced Soul Art without knowing. Therefore subconsciously. But I was always expressing my experiences and emotions through writing and painting; I have always used art in a therapeutic way. I believe most artist work with their moods and feelings. So when I truly became aware of it I started using it more conscious and exploring what it was really doing for me; Soul Art helped me heal myself in many ways. I also realized how often clients who own my paintings would tell me what my work means and does for them, I consider this a huge compliment. And when a friend of mine told me that Intuitive Art would totally be my thing to do is when the idea came about how helpful it could be for others as well. It has been years of personal exploration and experiences and that is why I know this stuff really works!”
“Other art forms where also helpful, like writing. I did this a lot! Which also works in a therapeutic way, I would write everything down; what was bugging me, making me happy, what I was wishing for etc. and be amazed after a while to read back and realize there was progress or that things where resolved, and certain issues cleared. It is known that if you write down your wishes and hopes you will be more focused to see them come true.” Writing my dreams down is also something I do, they tell me a whole lot! clairvoyance is not new to me, Ssshhhhttt….
What do you collect and why?
I am a sucker for crystals, stones and pebbles, I like earth colors and I collect samples of sand/earth from all over the world, I also use them in my work. I so love nature, as a kid I collected leaves.
Tell us about your ongoing project ‘Humans of Aruba’?
“I came across this project ‘Humans of New York’ and thought why not ‘Humans of Aruba?’ I was the first in the Caribbean to start this project and now it is worldwide. Every big city has a Human of… By collecting quotes or short stories from the people you meet, and including these snippets with the photographs you take you make a vibrant blog about the city or island you live on. I have these pictures and stories on Facebook. I came across this project a few years back and was right away very enthusiastic about it. There are a lot of people with interesting stories. And I love documenting a piece of it.
How do I select?
Well, sometimes it’s pure physical as in what catches my eye and other times I feel that the person has something to tell, it comes as a whisper a moment…”
Why are we documenting the world? We have never documented so much as we do now. The technology is there but why do you think we are doing this and why are you doing it?
“I think in a way it’s bringing us closer together making the world smaller. Maybe people want to be seen and heard. And we want to know about them. There are a lot of interesting stories to tell. I think life is beautiful and people are beautiful and I am trying to catch the essence of that.”
What is your next art project?
“Goddesses. I am researching and exploring goddesses and the history of females and their roles in the universe. I have 4 paintings of Goddesses up till now it is a process, I am discovering new insights and other dimensions on the female energy, also myths and believes about women.” “This is so inspiring to me and I feel it to also be a never ending project just like my Childhood series; The theme is endless.
And of course my new project ‘Soul Art’, I will be giving several workshops in 2016 so keep an eye open and join in, no basics needed just be fearless. It is your Higher self you are going to be introduced to.
What is the most beautiful lesson you have learned?
“Discovering that being ‘naïve’ is beautiful. Accepting that about myself, the fact that I see the world in a different way.
For a long time I thought that this was wrong because people would always say that to me in a laughable, negative way that I was so naive. Now I am proud of it, it is a part of me and I nurture it. I am also better at protecting myself from negative energies and be at ease all by myself.” Call me an empath. I so love me.
Vanessa as an artist has worked on many projects herself and has gained experience and artistic skills by contributing to dozens of special expositions, she is well known for her paintings like the Childhood memories series, Schizophrenia series, murals and Virginia, the rebellious Aruban slave. To know more about Vanessa please visit www.vanessapaulina.com
Press release ‘The language of the eye’ exhibition
Looking Out (painting on canvas by Vanessa Paulina 2010)
Press release THE LANGUAGE OF THE EYE
You are hereby invited for the opening reception of THE LANGUAGE OF THE EYE, an exhibition by Vanessa Paulina, at the Westin Aruba Art Gallery on saturday June 26 2010 at 8PM.
Vanessa Paulina captures in her artwork faces of her culture. Painting various moments in time; a Caribbean culture which she grew up in and to which she has always been drawn. Title exhibition: The language of the eye.
An art piece painted by the Artiste; through her eyes she has managed to visualize and translate her thoughts on canvas. The eye that sees what it wishes to see, the eye that captures and tells its own story.
Figures coming to life and living it the way they please, this because ‘you’, the spectator decided to see what you wish to see; you make the story. Was it an air of melancholy that has taken over?
You see.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE EYE will be on display at the Westin Aruba Art Gallery from june 26 through august 26.
*** ”De taal die het oog spreekt’ expo Vanessa Paulina’, in: Antilliaans Dagblad, 3 juli 2010.
The artist Vanessa Paulina
Communicado di prensa exposicion ‘The language of the eye’
Su persona ta cordialmenta invita pa e apertura di exposiscion nobo di artista vanessa Paulina, ‘The language of the eye’ na Westin Aruba Art Gallery riba diasabra 26 di juni 8 ‘or di anochi.
Vanessa Paulina ta captura den su obranan visual, caranan di su cultura. Paisahenan biba den un momento of otro; un cultura Caribense cu e la lanta den dje i cu semper a conmove.
Titulo di e expo: E lenguaje di wowo
Un obra for di man di e Artista ku pa medio di su wowonan a sa di visualisa i translada su pensamentonan ariba canvas.
E wowo ku ta mira loke e ta desea di mira; e wowo cu ta capta i crea su mesun storia.
Figuranan ku a hanja bida i a sa di crea esaki na nan propio antoho, pasobra ‘abo’, e espectante ta dicidi, abo ta mira loke abo ta desea di mira, abo ta crea bo propio version; un sentimento cu aire di melancholia kizas por a apodera dibo?
Bo a wak.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE EYE ta keda habri na Westin Aruba Art Gallery di 26 di juni te 26 di augustus 2010.
Persbericht expositie ‘The language of the eye’
Hierbij nodigen wij u uit voor de opening van de exposite ‘The language of the eye’ van kunstenares Vanessa Paulina, op zaterdag 26 juni om 8 uur ‘s avonds in Westin Aruba Art Gallery.
Vanessa Paulina laat in haar visuele werken gezichten van haar Caribische cultuur zien. Verschillende momenten in tijd; een Caribische cultuur waar ze in groot is gebracht en die haar altijd is blijven fascineren.
Titel van de expositie: De taal die het oog spreekt
Een kunstwerk vervaardigd door de kunstenares die met haar ogen haar gedachten heeft weten te visualiseren en vertalen op het doek.
Het oog dat ziet wat het wenst te zien, het oog dat haar verhaal doet leven.
Figuren die op het doek tot leven zijn gebracht en deze een eigen invulling geven, dit omdat ‘u’, de toeschouwer dit heeft bepaald, ‘u’ ziet wat u wenst te zien, met uw ogen vertelt u uw eigen verhaal; is het misschien een gevoel die geurt naar melancholie die de overhand heeft genomen?
U ziet.
‘The language of the eye’ is nog te bezichtigen in Westin Aruba Art Gallery van 26 juni tot en met 26 augustus 2010.