Artist & PHOTOGRAPHEr
Vanessa Paxton
Toronto, Canada.
Event Photography – Portraits – FINE Art Commissions
Client Galleries . Services & Rates . Art Gallery . Weddings . Contact
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about
I’m a multidisciplinary artist (writer, painter, dancer, and photographer), born in Jamaica, and raised in the mountains. I currently work and live in Toronto, where I earned my Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ryerson University in 2011. For the past 20+ years I’ve documented life unfolding through my lens, for others and for myself, prompted primarily by my immigration journey; which at its core is a desire to hold on to the fleeting and capture the intangible.
Starting this month, September 2026, I’ll be hosting paint nights and art workshops at Vu Cafe Studio
Art Talk
We all fear death and question our place in the universe. The artists job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.
Conceptual Self
I began my conceptual self-portraiture journey back in 2005, before selfie sticks, camera phones, and AI prompts. It was a much more involved process back then from concept to execution, which gave me the space and time to reflect deeply on my intention for, and motivation behind each creation. The more involved the process the more I would question the “why” behind the desire, and the deeper I would travel into the shadows of my mind to investigate my ego. I’ve learned that our access to truth is always filtered through subjective perception, and meaning isn’t inherent, we create it.
An image is but one aspect of being at a particular point in time. A wave appears as a particle when observed, but never actually ceases to be the wave.
vanessa paxton 