My Story

I'm Vanesa Miori, an Argentine painter based on the southeast coast of Florida, working in oil, acrylic, and mixed media.

My love of painting began long before Florida, in Buenos Aires. I started young, studying drawing and classical technique with Pietro Antonuccio — and even then, the outdoor classes were my favorite. I once won second prize for a painting of my house, with my mother waving from the doorway. She was my very first model.

Life took its turns after that — studies, a first career, a young family — and eventually a move to Mexico. There I had the good fortune to study oil with a teacher who had trained under a disciple of Diego Rivera, and it was then that I developed a real command of a limited palette. Back in Buenos Aires years later, a fellow artist and friend, Mónica Gallego, taught me mixed media on wood; I began building my own frames from different materials and textures, and the surface itself became part of the work. In 2008 I held my first solo exhibition there, Juego de Texturas — "a game of textures." That title still says everything about how I work. Painting has always been a kind of play for me: a pleasure taken in design, color, and texture. I never lost that. Nearly two decades later, it's still the engine of everything I make.

"Finding the Coast"

When I arrived in South Florida, my first painting was a Divine Mercy in oil — a large 36 × 48 canvas I drew entirely by hand over the course of a month before laying down a single brushstroke. It was a way of giving thanks and keeping faith at the center of our new life here. From there, the coast took over. We had always loved the beach, and now the sea, the light, the figures, and the flowers of South Florida pulled my palette and my subjects toward the water — and I found the work I was meant to make: my Dancing Ladies, ocean life, Florida florals, and the fluid, layered abstractions that come straight out of that old game of textures.

People tell me my paintings make them feel something good — a joy, a lift, an optimism. I don't apologize for that. Choosing joy is one of the braver things an artist can do, and I build mine the slow way: by hand, layer over layer, until the surface itself feels alive. These are paintings made to be lived with — to bring warmth into a room and keep giving it back.

My work is held in collections across South Florida, Argentina, Chicago, and Mexico City, and lives in the homes designers create for coastal living. I'm honored to be selected for the 2026 edition of 40 Over 40 Magazine. I paint from my studio at Zero Empty Spaces, inside the Design Center of the Americas (DCOTA), where I welcome studio visits and viewings by appointment — I'd be glad to show you my work in person.

If you'd like to follow my work as it unfolds, join my collectors list 👇— I'd love to stay in touch.