Vanessa B. Cruz

Motion Designer, Installation Artist, and Educator

Lives & works in North East Florida

 

Vanessa B. Cruz attended The California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA, where she earned her MFA in Experimental Animation and holds a BFA in Film/ Video/ Animation from the Rhode Island School of Design. Since 2005 Ms. Cruz has been teaching in the Graphic Design and Digital Media program at the University of North Florida, where she focuses on Motion Graphics and Illustration. Ms. Cruz has worked in the animation industry for over fifteen years.  She has worked for such studios as 20th Century Fox Television Animation, Film Roman, as well as created her own independent films.  

Her films have been shown internationally and she’s won awards at the Ottawa International Film Festival and Oslo Animation Festival.  She had previously taught multimedia at College of the Canyons and was Assistant Director of Sony Pictures Media Arts Program while teaching at both EagleRock and San Fernando facilities. Ms. Cruz has taught animation workshops at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Los Angeles Children’s Museum, and California Institute of the Arts.  Ms. Cruz was also a curator for screenings at the REDCAT in Los Angeles, Santa Monica Museum of Art, as well as the Japanese American National Museum.

Ms. Cruz has been awarded the prestigious Fulbright Scholars Award where she worked with the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland, in the Media Arts department. She received her second Fulbright as a Specialist in Media Arts, where she worked with St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, in Austria. And most recently in 2022, she has received her third award as a Specialist working in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia with GerHub. She has also received the 2010 Individual Artist Fellowship Award from the State of Florida. She also enjoys collaborating on various projects with fellow artists. 

Thank you for your interest.