Twin Cities metro based Virginia Townsend, also known as bunny rabbit, paints from her experience with mental health, disability, support services, and defining her independence. Born to parents with symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar psychosis, Townsend honed her critical thinking skills early by distinguishing between her parents’ beliefs and her own view of the world. In her artistic work Townsend uses this skill to play with concepts of objective truth and perception, and how they intertwine in mental health recovery communities.

Since 2019, Townsend has been creating art full time, with her current practice supported by MSS, a progressive day program supporting people with disabilities.

Navigating the daily challenges of post-traumatic stress, Townsend has experience making art in nontraditional settings. She learned to connect emotion and image in hospital-based occupational therapy groups and continued her journey by painting full time in supportive adult day centers. From her numerous stays in mental health units, Townsend speaks openly about unique obstacles people face when utilizing hospital services.

Quiet in person, her voice speaks loudly through her abstract and figurative art. Townsend seeks to change established medical narrative and terminology by joining care providers and people receiving care in respectful dialogue. From direct lived experience, she identifies cracks in support services, and well intentioned policy that may have disastrous effects. She advocates for people with disabilities needing 24/7 supports, and cannot find settings without sacrificing privacy or choice of whom they reside with.

Townsend is a recipient of a FY2024 Creative Individuals grant funded by the Minnesota State Arts Board and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is also the grantee of Arts Midwest’s 2024 Midwest Award for Artists with Disabilities. Her work has been used for advertising and licensed for greeting card, book, and zine cover art. She's served as a panelist for the Minnesota State Arts Board’s FY2023 Arts Education grant, and for an online Neurodiverse Literature and Art panel open to the community. Townsend has work in Minnetonka United Health Care, the University of Minnesota's Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, and private collections. 

Simply put, I paint what I feel and shine light on dark places.

In grandiloquent purple prose, I express my experience with mental health and skills through abstract and figurative art. My visual language feels intuitive and novel, connecting color to mood, activity to internal activation, and intersecting structures to inner unrest. I do this alongside figurative depictions to enhance the viewers’ ability to creatively interpret. Using acrylic paint I paint quickly and efficiently, at the same pace as my thoughts. My palette combines neon, fluorescent and rich, warm earth tones, and contrasting colors to render a full spectrum encounter. Changing mark making tools fosters visual depth and meaning, whether a rugged edge as pain of loss, or rows of lines as repeating behavior.  

I start each painting with an open mind, allowing the creative process to unfold organically.  I let the events of the day and week trickle through my consciousness, guiding how fast I put down a line, the pressure I use, and how many times a section breaks apart. As the painting draws to a close, its message becomes apparent to me. My work bears anger, flashbacks, nightmares, and memories. They’re born from hope, trauma, and coping skills, with an overarching theme of the search for rest. 

Virginia Townsend (bunny rabbit)
Visual Artist, Painter

GRANTS + AWARDS
2024
Midwest Award for Artists with Disabilities, recipient, Arts Midwest, August 14
2023
Creative Individuals FY 2024 recipient, Minnesota State Arts Board + National Endowment for the Arts, Oct. 12
Best in Show winner, Artability, group exhibition, People Incorporated, St Paul, MN, Oct. 27

MEMBERSHIPS + WORK EXPERIENCE
2024
Visual Artist, Midwest Special Services (MSS), Eagan, MN — Licensed day program supporting artists with disabilities
2023
Application Panel Reviewer, Minnesota State Arts Board FY 2024 Arts Education Grant
2019-24
Visual Artist, Interact Center for Visual & Performing Arts, St Paul, MN — Licensed day program for artists and actors with disabilities

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2025
In Response, forthcoming, multiple locations in MN, solo exhibition, May-July, 2025 — 15 Series of paintings, each 24x24 inches, acrylic on cradled wood
2023
Great Big Holiday Sale, Interact Gallery, St Paul, MN, group exhibition
Artability, People Incorporated, Union Depot, St Paul, MN, group exhibition
Rooted in Nature, Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Chaska, MN, group exhibition
20 painting mural, Interact Center lobby, Saint Paul, MN, solo installation
Bona Fide, Fresh Eye Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, group exhibition
Three month lease of four selected works, Bold Orange, Minneapolis, MN, solo installation
2022
Great Big Holiday Sale, Interact Gallery, Saint Paul, MN, group exhibition
Uniquinox: Tarot Alive, Interact Gallery, Saint Paul, MN, group exhibition
2021
Zoomtopia, Interact Gallery (online), group exhibition
2020
Great Big Holiday Sale, Interact Gallery, Saint Paul, MN, group exhibition
Free Not $Free, Interact Gallery (online), solo exhibition
We Are Not Disposable, Interact Gallery (online), group exhibition
2019
Groundswell, Artspace Jackson Flats, Minneapolis, MN, group exhibition
Art Crawl, Group Show, Interact Center, Saint Paul, MN, group exhibition

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
2023
Artist talk, Zoom, Bold Orange, Minneapolis, MN
2021
Panelist, Zoom, Neurodiverse Literature and Art, Online panel cohosted by Minnesota Humanities Center and Cow Tipping Press

PUBLICATIONS, COLLABORATIONS, & LICENSING
2024
Artability, advertising, print and online, Fall
Turn Back Toward Tomorrow, cover art, Cow Tipping Press book, Spring
2023
Art Partners Group, licensing
Day and Night Spell zine, editor and contributing artist, Interact Gallery
2022
Happy New Year card, cover art, 350 count, Media Minefield, Minneapolis, MN
2021
Moon Made of Chicken, cover art, Cow Tipping Press book, Summer
Ya Mo Da La Va, cover art, Cow Tipping Press book, Spring
Snow in Texas, cover art, Cow Tipping Press book, Spring
2019
Do Fart Make Art zine, contributing artist (pseud. Abbi M.), Interact Gallery, Fall/Winter

NOTABLE PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
2022
University of Minnesota, Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, Minneapolis, MN, permanent collection, June
Minnetonka United Health Care, Minnetonka, MN, April