Vanessa Zita Vanderidder

In 2006 Vanessa sustained a traumatic brain injury in a freak accident. While waiting at a stoplight an overloaded dump truck sped by her car. A boulder fell to the ground, broke apart, and a fragment flew in her open car window striking her in the head. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Rehabilitation was a long process and ended with Vanessa being unable to return to the workforce.  

 

Vanessa began painting to express emotion and found it allowed her to focus her attention, relax and get lost in the colour and texture of oil paint. She now creates her abstract paintings on large canvases using a mixed medium.   

 

At this point in her career Vanessa has been featured on CBC London radio and in Curve Magazine. Her artwork has made appearances in various editions of Our Homes Magazine and hangs on the walls of Western’s Interdisciplinary Research Building. It also can be seen in several commercials, movies and TV shows, such as The Rick Mercer Show and season 3's Locke & Key. 

 

The art that will be featured at Goderich's Part II Bistro during "For Water and For Home" exhibition will be from her upcycled collection. All of the artwork have discarded materials for texture and include leftover latex paint. She created a piece especially for the show that uses garbage collected from local beaches.