Meet Victoria V Nunley | Painter

We had the good fortune of connecting with Victoria V Nunley and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Victoria V, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
Creating art is in my nature. I can’t not make art; if I go too long without, I feel very restless. I think part of it is that I have a lot of thoughts and feelings that can only be explored and explained through visual language.

So in my case, pursuing an art career was the natural progression from making art, because with making art came opportunities. It’s a risky career and cash flow isn’t regular, but I gain a deep level of satisfaction from it.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m the most proud of buckling down and sinking further into my sensibilities as an artist. In undergrad, I had weird ideas about what painting is and isn’t, and I worked for years to shed those notions. It takes a lot of bravery and confidence for any artist to find their own voice, especially when you’re receiving push-back.

I’ve come to understand that my strengths come from clean, decisive lines, color, and a visual language that’s unique to me. I’ve studied and borrowed from sources like Japanese anime, the Golden Age of American animation, film noir, art deco; I’ve drawn and redrawn and reworked and reassembled these ingredients together to make a style that’s mine. Viewers can see the influences, but it’s never quite one thing entirely.

A lesson that keeps coming back to me over and over again is that there is very little in my career that’s within my control, and that’s just how it is. The only thing I can control is my art, so with every painting I try to make it even better than the last. It can be maddening to constantly pursue a horizon line like that, so it’s important to stop and take a step back and gain some perspective on how far I’ve come (I’ll also freely admit I’m not so great at that, I am guilty of having tunnel-vision for many months at a time).

Getting to where I am now was the most difficult at the beginning, I had to finally recognize and decide that I needed to carve out the time to make art. I had been working a very emotionally taxing job that paid me a pittance and I didn’t have the energy to make anything at all; I was unhappy, and restless, and I lost sight of my goals in just trying to keep my head above water. After over a year of this, I kind of just sat up one day and asked myself, “Can I really call myself an artist if I’m literally never making art?”
Some people would argue yes, but in my soul, for how I operate as a person, the answer was no. I was just a person who worked in a building. So I negotiated a demotion for myself at my job but still retained a wage that was enough money to live on, and I spent every day I had off of work in my art studio. Anywhere from ten to thirteen hours in there, only surfacing to walk across the street to eat at the Mexican restaurant and drink coffee.
It sounds wild, but with the mental load lifted off of me, I was so much happier and fulfilled than I had been in a long time. I painted and painted and painted and I didn’t have any opportunities, no one was looking at my work, no one cared, and it was great. I could make anything, I could do anything, and I did.
Eventually, through people I knew and instagram, opportunities to show or sell art rolled in, and that’s how I got where I am today.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well, DC has so many amazing and free museums, so of course we would hit them up. So far I’ve been to the National Gallery, the Hirschhorn, the National Museum of African American History, and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History — all of them are incredible.
In my neighborhood in Alexandria, there’s a really delicious frozen custard place called “The Dairy Godmother” which is exemplary and also has a chair that Obama sat in when he went there.
The area also has a strong breakfast/brunch game so Table Talk Restaurant and Del Ray Café are musts.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are many, many people who helped me get to the place I am now– these are but a few:

The professors in my undergraduate and graduate studies who encouraged me and told me to keep going when I was unsure of myself: Susan Lichtman, Sean Downey, Joe Wardwell, Lucy Kim, JM Howey, and Josephine Halvorson.

Quang Bao of 1969 Gallery, who was the first gallerist to show my work post-MFA and shed light on how things in the art world work.

Frazer Bailey of Moosey Art, who has given me two solo exhibitions in England.

Shona McAndrew, who is the very best friend anybody could ask for and a stellar artist who I can always to turn to with questions.

And finally, my parents, Rosie and Bill, who have always been my biggest cheerleaders.

Website: https://vvnunley.com

Instagram: @vvnunley