Catto Vanessa Houghton graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drawing and Painting in 2003, lived and worked in Toronto for six years and has recently relocated her studio to San Francisco. While living in Montreal she was involved in many curatorial projects and group exhibitions as well as working on independent projects and solo shows. She was one of the primary founders of Profuzion Collective, a multi-disciplinary arts collective that organized two large-scale one-night events that brought together over 150 local artists and performers.
While living in Toronto, Catto participated in several group exhibitions and projects including live-collaborative painting with local graffiti and mixed media artists and illustrators at venues such as Omy Gallery, The Spoke Club, and the WhipperSnapper gallery. She has worked at several Toronto galleries including Luft gallery, The Art Gallery of Ontario, The Gibsone Jessop Gallery, Artcore, and Median Contemporary, a space showcasing new-media art works. She has been a two-time finalist and honorable mention at the Kingston prize for Contemporary Canadian Portraiture and has participated in a juried group show at the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts. Her illustrations have appeared in magazines such as EnRoute, the Montreal Gazette and Shameless. Catto was recently featured on an episode of "Star Portraits" which will be aired on Bravo in the fall of 2009. She is a member of the Portrait Society of Canada and was one of the founders of Walnut Studios, a working studio and presentation space for emerging and established local artists. Her favourite things besides contemporary art include sharks, cycling, house music, architecture and new fiction.