vanessa german is a black woman artist born in 1976 in Milwaukee, WI and currently based in Pittsburgh, PA. In the art world, she identifies herself as a citizen artist. This signals her (inter)subjectivity with earth, queerness, and blackness, and her commitment to healing her communities and helping them tap into their creative potential. She does this work through initiatives—the Love Front Porch founded in 2011 and ARThouse, founded in 2014 in Homewood, PA. She is a self-taught artist who works across multiple mediums, tackling systemic and embodied issues such as poverty and misogynoir through symbolic and energetic representations of black power, mysticism, and spirituality.