Vesselina Traptcheva was born in Varna, Bulgaria. She began training in drawing and painting at an early age and attended both the National High School for Fine Arts and National Academy for Fine Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria, where she majored in printmaking. She came to the USA on a scholarship to the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she completed a BFA in Painting in 1996. She completed an MFA in painting from Parsons, New York in 2000. She received a fellowship to attend the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2003 and completed a residency at Yaddo in 2004. Her work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Her work was highlighted in New American Paintings MFA Edition in 2000. She was awarded the Art of the Northeast Jean and Don Rorke Award in 2002, as well as Honorable Mentions at the 4th Annual Small Works Exhibition at the Attleboro Museum, Attleboro, Massachusetts. Her work was featured at The Radius Exhibit ’07 at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, in Ridgefield, Connecticut. In 2011, she received a NY Foundation for the Arts Strategic Opportunity Grant for her installation project The Labyrinth.