Vanessa Estes Quintero is a ceramic artist of Mexican descent, based in Los Angeles, working across both sculptural and functional forms. Her practice is informed by experience and cultural heritage, using clay as a means to explore identity; personally, as it pertains to straddling American and Mexican cultures, and more broadly, engaging with themes of the human condition and understanding one’s place within the material and intangible realms.

She was raised largely in Southern California, spending most of her formative summers in the historic town of Valle de Allende, in Chihuahua, Mexico, where her mother was born. It was a town of incredible mystery and beauty, filled with ghosts and walnut trees, faded adobe walls, orchards, ranches and hidden courtyards.

Following in her family’s footsteps, she studied art, dance, craft and fashion, owning her own clothing label for close to ten years before transitioning completely to working with clay.