We talk w/ emerging artist Vanessa Dorrei

We talk to Vanessa Dorrei about her beginnings in the art world, her relationship with her brother Sen Senra, her dream project and much more.

Vanessa Dorrei is an artist based in Madrid and born in Vigo, Galicia. She started painting and writing since she was a child, and has participated from the beginning in her brother Sen Senra’s project making the covers. With very little budget, but with a lot of stubbornness, Vanessa has lived different lives in different places, in which all end and begin in the same place; the love for creating and experimenting.

HIGHXTAR (H) – For those who don’t know you yet, who is Vanessa Dorrei?

VANESSA DORREI (V) – Vanessa Dorrei is actually Vanessa Senra. I was born in Vigo, and grew up between the beach and the mountains. My mother was a fruit grower, my father a bricklayer and a lot of love at home.

(H) – How was your first contact with the art world?

(V) – I remember my first contact with the world of art with my father. He was very good at drawing, and he did it as a hobby. I remember that when I was little the walls of our house were decorated with murals that he painted for me and my brother. We lived in a first floor with very little light but he created a very cool space and inspired me a lot.

(H) – What is art for you?

(V) – For me art is a gift. I have always escaped or traveled when I needed to. It is like a meditation for me. A moment in which to be alone with myself and that is a pleasant sensation, sometimes painful, but I invite any emotion that presents itself when I am creating or when I am enjoying any kind of artistic expression, whether mine or others.

(H) – What would you say is their space within the digital era in which we live?

(V) – Well, it’s a bit conflicting. On the one hand it’s nice to be able to access many types of artistic expression in such a simple way. However, it’s nice to be able to enjoy in more traditional media, in museums, on walls in the street, and to be able to be physically present and experience sensations when seeing textures and strokes…

(H) – Where does all the imagination of your artistic work come from?

(V) – It comes mostly from emotions and dreams. I dream a lot, I have many lucid dreams and many nightmares, and I gather from there the sensations. Also the environmental factor, where I grew up in Galicia, with its summers where you feel young and alive and its winter of rain and intimate mental trajectory. Lois Pereiro already said “Galicia is a people that knows how to commit suicide” but “if it is so old, it will be for a reason”.

(H) – Your work transports us to a sometimes surreal world. What do you want to convey with your work?

(V) – I don’t want to convey anything in particular. I also use it as a tool for me, to let things out. And let them stay on paper. I like to let myself flow and create a space for other people to experience other sensations, other feelings. In the end, the beauty of art is to be able to escape to other worlds outside the “real” plane and travel to places inside or outside of you that you physically could not reach.

(H) – What is your day-to-day life in the studio like? What is your creative process like?

(V) – My creative process is very fluid. When I start a work I go with an idea more or less in my head, and then once I start I see what I feel and I let myself go. I love painting in silence, and I love painting with music, and feeling different emotions in my body. Stop, walk away from the canvas, look at it for a while while I smoke a cigarette. And come back to it. It’s a moment for me and I’m very grateful to art for giving me so much.

(H) – What techniques do you use in your works?

(V) – Well, it depends. Sometimes something asks me for oil, sometimes acrylic. Other times I’ve mixed mediums, spray, airbrush…it depends on how I feel I feel like it. Sometimes I go with a soft brush and sometimes I nail nails, I don’t know, it depends on what comes up in my body.

(H) – We have seen your art applied to handbags, jewelry, clothing… what does fashion mean to you?

(V) – Fashion is another medium where I can express myself artistically. I love to play and try new things. Fashion opens another range where the Dorrei feels comfortable, and I love that part. I like to never feel limited in terms of means of creation. I express myself through clothes also in my day to day life, jewelry, etc… I love wearing the Dorrei on me haha.

(H) – What would you say has been your most important project?

(V) – My most important project is and continues to be the path I travel as an artist, the different lives I live and how they are reflected in the things I do. And the foreign lives that the things I do have according to the eyes that look at them. It is very interesting for me to see not only my own interpretation, but also to be able to see what sensations other people experience or what they see. Very different things happen and it is very nice for me that other people are rediscovering my work.

(H) – You have designed most of Sen Senra’s covers, how is it to work hand in hand with your brother?

(V) – Working with my brother is the most natural thing that exists in my body. You could say that we have been working together since we were born. We have been nurturing and retro-feeding each other with art. I learn a lot from him, and I am inspired by him as a human being, beyond his music which is incredible. But he has certain colors and values that have always influenced me a lot in my life and continue to do so. We go hand in hand artistically, and I love listening to him, and we can talk for hours and hours about life, art, emotions. It’s incredible to have someone like that close to you in your life.

(H) – What other artist would you like to collaborate with?

(V) – I would love to collaborate with Ana Barriga. She’s an amazing aunt and her art is just as amazing as she is.

(H) –What role would you say social media plays in your work?

(V) – Well, in this case I use them a little bit. I share things sometimes. But I don’t use them as the main focus where I show my art. Love/hate, like everyone else I guess.

(H) – What does one of your works have to have for you to be satisfied with the result?

(V) – Sometimes in one of those moments when I step aside, I smoke a cigarette, and I look and look and look and look. And I’m making small details, here, there, and there’s like an intuition, let’s call it, that there’s a moment that tells me: now. And that’s how it stays.

(H) – What would be your ideal project?

(V) – Mi proyecto ideal, diría que en lo que estoy trabajando ahora mismo. Me estoy adentrando mucho en un viaje muy guay entre mi dios interior y mi pinche tirano, y estoy enfocada en eso principalmente. Pintando cuadros grandes y generando una colección que habla de ese viaje interior, donde los sueños, las pesadillas y la realidad se mezcla tanto que ya no sabes que es cada cosa.

(H) – Where would you like to see your work exhibited?

(V) – In some rafts, floating in the water.

(H) – How do you see the art scene in our country?

(V) – Super rich, in the end art, whatever type it is, is born from the human being. And we are all complex in our own way. So even if I lean more towards one side or the other, I value what is born within each one of us and I respect it a lot.

(H) – A contemporary artist that you recommend.

(V) – Well, I would like to recommend a literary artist, Lupe Gómez. Her poetry is an incredible source of inspiration for me.

(H) – Future plans.

(V) – To continue painting, to continue exploring art, myself…because everything goes hand in hand. On a path like the 4 faces of the hero. And “pa diante”.