Vanessa Bahmani is an artist and photographer, born in Guatemala City and raised in Berkeley, California. She has a B.A. degree in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley and an MFA degree in Photography from School of Visual Arts in NYC.

She was a semi finalist in the 2008 Adobe Achievement Awards, a nominee for the 2009 NY Photo Festival, and a top 110 finalist for EXPOSURE 2011. She's also been awarded first place at the 2009 NeoPop Realism International Art Competition.

Vanessa has exhibited her work at Power House Books Arena in Brooklyn (2008), the ISE Cultural Foundation in SoHo (2009), and Ramscale Gallery NYC (2010), during the Manhattan Cocktail Classic. In 2011 she had a three month solo show displaying her cocktail photography at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans. Her Occupy Wall Street portrait series titled "We are the 99%" was featured at the Firehouse Gallery in Garden City, NY, and at Rush Arts Gallery in Chelsea, NYC (Dec. 2011) during CURATE NYC's exhibition. Vanessa is also being featured in the "Occupy Wall Street" exhibit at the South Street Seaport Museum, NYC (thru Spring. 2012). This work will also be displayed at The Station Museum of Contemporary Art in Houston, TX. Spring 2012. Click here to Vote for her work in the Artist Wanted competition.

Vanessa recently launched an IndieGoGo Campaign to fund the completion of her Occupy Wall Street portrait series titled "We Are the 99%". Click here to see her NY1 news interview, and here for the Huffington Post article about her occupy portrait series.

Vanessa photographs a weekly cocktail column called "Happy Hour" on UmamiMart.com and is an educator at Nassau Community College. She's fluent in Spanish, knowledgeable in Farsi, and currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and baby Border Collie.