French-born, Barcelona-based street artist Miss Van (Vanessa Alice) is renowned for her signature sloe-eyed, moth-masked, burlesque poupées. Her wonderful ethereal muses have adorned walls around the world for more than two decades, serving as extensions of the artist’s own sensibility.
On her recent travels to San Luis Potosí, Miss Van unveils a beautiful homage to surrealist Leonora Carrington, deepening her dialogue with feminine myth in the very city Carrington once called home.
Miss Van, Surrealist Tribute to Leonora Carrington ( San Luis Potosí, 2025). Image copyright Miss Van
Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) was a British-born surrealist painter, sculptor, and writer who made Mexico her adopted home. A visionary artist, she wove myth, magic, and feminism into richly symbolic works populated by hybrid beings, alchemical rituals, and dreamlike landscapes. Carrington’s art often challenged conventional roles for women, portraying them instead as shamans, guides, and shape-shifters in control of their own worlds.
Leonora Carrington. Image Copyright The Museo Leonora Carrington
In Mexico, she became a central figure in the surrealist circle, creating paintings, tapestries, and later monumental bronzes that continue to inspire generations. Today, her legacy is preserved in San Luis Potosí, where two museums dedicated to her work affirm her place as one of the most important surrealist voices of the twentieth century.
Miss Van, Surrealist Tribute to Leonora Carrington ( San Luis Potosí, 2025). Image copyright Miss Van
The Museo Leonora Carrington at the Centro de las Artes houses her bronzes, drawings, tapestries, and jewellery. Further south, in Xilitla, a second museum offers an intimate encounter with her fantastical hybrids and mythic beings.
Miss Van, Surrealist Tribute to Leonora Carrington ( San Luis Potosí, 2025). Image copyright Miss Van
After visiting a city alive with surrealism and its two dedicated museums, Miss Van extended this celebration into the streets. Her mural presents her signature moth-masked muse draped in flowing orange folds. Alongside her sits a patterned bronze pot, while from its base a reclining violet fox emerges, part guardian, part trickster, a presence that feels drawn from Carrington’s universe of hybrids. Surrounding foliage ties the scene to place, blurring daily life with dream and ritual.
Miss Van, Surrealist Tribute to Leonora Carrington ( San Luis Potosí, 2025). Image copyright Miss Van
As Miss Van herself explains to me:
“I wasn’t inspired by one piece of Leonora especially. I was just honoured to spend time in the city where she lived and has two museums representing her.”
The mural is not a direct quotation of Leonora Carrington’s work, but a poetic response to her universe as a whole and a tribute to both the surrealist’s enduring presence and the city that safeguards her legacy.
Miss Van, Surrealist Tribute to Leonora Carrington ( San Luis Potosí, 2025). Image copyright Miss Van
The mural can be found Calle Arteaga 425, Barrio de San Sebastián, San Luis Potosí.
During her time in Xilitla, Miss Van also travelled to Edward James’s Las Pozas, a surrealist concrete jungle dream. Edwards James, the eccentric British patron of surrealism, was from Chichester, England. He founded West Dean College of Art, collaborated with Salvador Dalí on icons such as the Mae West Lips Sofa and Lobster Telephone, and collected treasures including Leonora Carrington’s ‘La Grande Dame’ which often found stood in his entrance to his Monkton House, the sculpture sold for $11.38 million at Sothebys auction house in fall 2024. Edward James is now laid to rest in West Dean estate, Chichester.
A surrealist link between San Luis Potosí and Chichester where GraffitiStreet Gallery is also based.
