Justine Varga
Varga… has, in essence, updated the metaphysical angst of mid-century action painting for our own chaotic age, when renewed anxieties around the politics of mass media have put pressure on the fidelity associated with photographic representation. Her works dismantle the expectations that those forces cultivate by breaking down the conventions that we otherwise expect to see in photographs. In so doing, she reasserts the photograph as a trace of the world. Her rubbed, scratched, and stained surfaces have been exposed to today’s disintegrating social and ecological climate, resulting in a grand mix of personal inscription and environmental trace.
Andrés Mario Zervigón, Professor of the History of Photography at Rutgers University (USA), 2020
Read Tachisme exhibition catalogue essays by Andrés Mario Zervigón (2020) and Susan Best (2021), Professor of Art History and Theory at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University
Read the Justine Varga Artist Profile cover story
Read exhibition essay, Justine Varga, End of Violet by Saul Nelson 2023
Exhibitions
Justine Varga
End of Violet
The title of my exhibition, ‘End of Violet’, is taken from a diary that Mary Somerville penned in 1845, detailing her experiments on the colour spectrum and vegetable juices. These words are not to be found in the body of the text, but instead are inscribed within the table of contents, a voice from the […]
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