As we draw closer to the new year we’ve asked a very special guest every day to take a moment to reflect on 2017 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for them. It’s an assortment of treats to surprise you with every day – to enjoy and contemplate as we all reflect on the year that has passed and conjure our hopes and wishes for 2018. This is our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and of saying ‘Thank You’ to each of you for inspiring us throughout the year.

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Originally from Toulouse, France Miss Van’s roots in Street Art/graffiti began in the early 90s where she began a development of character works that exude great personality and mystery on the street. Today her amies fableuses are as well known in galleries on canvasses as they are in the streets of her current home Barcelona. A trailblazer in urban culture, Miss Van’s ever-more-surreal burlesque figures are known to take us into dark boudoirs and mask-required fantasies that may wander into fetish and plays on power. Fully in possession of her earthly powers and her artistic journey, and wholly engaged with the many dramas we can have inside, the artist offers vintage characters, strong archetypes and exotic scenarios that may or may not actually exist, except in your mind. Today Miss Van shares with us some insight into her personal evolution this year as an artist and the value of leaving home.

MISS VAN

I chose this photo because it represents a change in my personal and artistic life.

I’ve just spent 2 months in the Bay Area, escaping from my hometown Barcelona, in search of inspiration, new feelings and experiences .

I got very much inspired and motivated to paint for my upcoming show at Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco at the end of January 2018 (what a great way to start the new year !) together with some paintings of the magnificent surrealist female painter Leonor Fini.

In this photo stand Gitana I and Gitana II in front of the classical Victorian houses of San Francisco.

Those paintings are special to me, they manifest an evolution in my art life and will always remind me of this particular time, far away from home where anything could happen.

Miss Van. Gitana I and Gitana II, Lower Haight , San Francisco, November 2017. (photo © Miss Van)

Miss Van