I’m Vanessa Arcana, an Okanagan-based artist and freewheeling absurdist who makes illustrations, zines, and sequential art.

Growing up on a farm in the Western prairies, I always had a restless longing for adventure that eventually led me out across the country in pursuit of the unknown. I completed my BA (Hons.) in Media Production at Toronto Metropolitan University and spent the following decade immersed in the underground creative scenes of Toronto and Montréal, chasing whimsical leads and exploring increasingly obscure corners of reality.

Caught up in a whirlwind of surrealist cabarets, avant-garde circus troupes, bohemian salons, moonlit fire jams, and radical artist collectives, I was inspired to start documenting and expressing my experiences in the form of psychedelic comic art. As my style evolves, capturing a felt sense of magic in 2D continues to be the central obsession that drives and shapes my work.

When I’m not making things, I can be found haunting old bookshops and haphazardly rollerskating. I love train travel, can’t stop talking to strangers, and live in a perpetual state of giddy excitement for Halloween!

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Connect

I don’t maintain any public social media accounts, but I’m always happy to connect by email. Drop me a line at vanessa@vanessa-arcana.com if you’d like to get in touch.

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