Vewn

I discovered Victoria Vincent, A.K.A. Vewn’s, animation during high school, and felt a little less alone from just watching them. Victoria’s animations are a stylized piece of storytelling unlike any other. She maintains a cryptic but childlike perspective in these engaging sequences that almost propels you into the mindset and perspective of the character. And with that, she brings this state of disillusionment and anxiety in dissociating and unstable worlds. An eclectic master of anxiety and personality to put the unasked questions in front of peoples faces, she is an inspiration to me almost to the point of a muse.

Vewn is extremely diverse as a creator, indulging into different mentalities of characters and personalities being represented and displayed in ironic and imaginary ways to fit her style of storytelling. Describing the anxiety of a cat trying to survive living in a city while dealing with addiction, separation, and self loathing isn’t doing enough justice to describe exactly how she portrays her cryptic personas. An imprinting projection of her audience and herself, Vewn’s hauntingly creative at intruding in the mindset of everyone and flowering that onto the screen.

The most notable thing of her eye is the perspective she provides with her animation and backgrounds. Her angles are simply askew. Bending the frame to wrap around the edges and embody the whole scene, the curve of her perspectives creates a sense of terror of a claustrophobic world, throwing the irregularities of life at you with no restriction.

She toys with the horizons and foreground to present a slanted childlike view of the world that is somehow domed; But even with this perversion of views, she maintains a proportion with the characters and world design to make it seem curvilinear. You are immersed into the space as if your not a viewer, but a specter or child. But even with this observer perspective, it only lasts seconds to immediately propel you into the next disillusionment of the characters world.

Vewn is immersive with pain and anxiety to resonate the audience their experience in the moment, and after. An master editor of anxiety, she jumps from scene to scene to indulge you into the charisma of their lives and how it slowly spins out of control. Scenes of regular day life being expended and crafted, only to lead to a sort of exhaustion of the world and what it continuously offers. The characters either crack or reach an apogee of clarity.

The simple complexity of her style presents a veil for what’s to come. She will indulge you in the characters pleasure and independence to make you understand why it brings them pain. And with this she resonates a lesson with the audience that is hard to handle; We are the same. And I appreciate her unique approach to facilitate this in such a cryptic and beautiful fashion. Her style, her approach, her display, and her fervor of her creation motivates me to pursue my same passion. She is one of the main reasons I animate and illustrate today.

Vewn shows the inner turmoil that fills the characters and what that blossoms to, an introspective implosion of realism in color. She shows their endless cycles of hollow joy and indulgent self loathing, a pain we all feel, and the reaction when the cycle finally peaks. Cataclysms of personality dealing with the introspective turmoil of their own choices, motivations, and love.

She shows the sufferings of these hollow joys and unstable decisions within the worlds of these characters. The indulgence of unknown chaos and the randomness of life create a plethora of aesthetics and scenarios which compliment the storytelling of Vewn.

But yet, she addresses the hypocritical irony that the world forces the character into. The lack of a connection from others to satiate inner pain, the shallow bliss that the masses enjoy to forget their lives, or the institutions and those who occupy it almost being the reason of their nature, and their nurture.

She forces her characters to confront themselves to be someone else; To become what they want, or what they need, but lose what they have, to do it. She does this through joy and sadness and music and terror and perspective and color and possibilities; And I will forever appreciate her work for making me feel more comfortable with myself, my passions, and motivating my pursuits. Vewn is an independent black creator unlike any other, and I await, with fervor, her next beautiful dream.