Victoria Selbach "Thoughts and Dreams"

Victoria Selbach is an American figurative painter best known for her empowering, life-size depictions of contemporary women. Selbach uses her work as a tool to better understand herself, generational feminine legacy, and our collective complicity in where we find ourselves today. Through luminous nude portraiture, collage, and assemblage, she constructs layered tableaux that examine identity, vulnerability, cultural conditioning, and the evolving role of women within contemporary society.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Selbach was raised among makers who shaped and colored their world by hand, instilling in her an early understanding of art as a powerful form of communication. She studied in youth programs at the Carnegie Mellon Museum of Art and Carnegie Mellon University before moving to New York City to attend Parsons School of Design. After many years living and working in New York, she recently relocated to rural Connecticut to expand her studio practice.
Selbach’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Heckscher Museum of Art, the Butler Institute of American Art, the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, and the MEAM Museum in Barcelona.
She has additionally been featured in numerous group exhibitions at The Untitled Space, including the 10th Anniversary exhibition “UPRISE 2025: The Art of Resistance” (2025), as well as “WE ARE WOMEN” (2024), “MY CHOICE” (2022), “The INNOVATE Exhibit” (2021), “UNRAVELED” (2021), “Art4Equality” (2020), and “BODY BEAUTIFUL” (2019).
Selbach’s work has been featured in The Huffington Post and in Beautiful Bizarre magazine, among many others. In addition to her studio practice, she is a writer and curator advocating for women artists.

Artist Statement 

"Thoughts and Dreams' looks into a realm of our desires, fears, and dreams that transcend geographical boundaries, civilizations and time.

This piece is one stop along my journey to explore more universal and elemental aspects of women's experience. Reflecting on our existence as an intrinsic part of the natural world, alongside the unnatural entanglements we endure, has been profoundly eye-opening and helps to expand my understanding of my own place within this complicated and beautiful mess.

Removing individual identity from the equation opened a door for me to see facets of our interconnectedness, both with each other and the world that we share. The work called for a new approach, and so moved towards figurative abstractions. My primary medium shifted to photo montage. These collage constructions are built with images of the natural world, historical legacies, and diverse experiences beyond my own sphere. When reimagined, the contrasting images intertwine and are reabsorbed, mirroring the way we breathe our shared nature back into our own existence." - Victoria Selbach