Vanessa da Silva São Paulo, Brazil, b. 1976

Vanessa da Silva (b. 1976, São Paulo, Brazil) is a London-based artist working across sculpture, installation and performance. She holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, and a BA in Industrial Design from FAAP, São Paulo.

Da Silva was awarded the Henry Moore Foundation Artist Grant (2025) and commissioned for Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture. She was selected for Sculpture in the City, London (2023, 2024), and received the Hopper Prize, USA, and the Gilbert Bayes Award from the Royal Society of Sculptors, UK (2020). In 2024, her work was included in the Phaidon publication 300 Women Sculptors.

Her residencies include FAAP, São Paulo (2020); Pivô Research Residency, São Paulo (2019); Duarte Sequeira Artist Residency Programme, Braga (2019); and Ox-Bow Residency, USA (2017).

Da Silva’s interdisciplinary, process-based practice explores how bodies and identities shift within changing cultural landscapes. Informed by her experience as a Latin American immigrant in the UK, her work engages with themes of migration, identity, and displacement.

Drawing on influences from Brazilian art history, natural elements, dance, and choreography, da Silva investigates the relationship between the body and its environment. Her work reflects on Brazilian identity and otherness, considering the spaces between nationalities and the complex borders where cultures and identities meet, overlap, and coexist. 

Recent projects include Mostyn Gallery (Llandudno, Wales); Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture (West Yorkshire, UK); Yorkshire Sculpture Park (Wakefield, UK); Sculpture in the City (London); Frieze Sculpture, Regent’s Park (London); Pippy Houldsworth Gallery (London); and Public Gallery (London).