2nd place: Virna Vargas | sculpture/installation
Describe your earliest beginnings as an artist.
As a child I loved to draw, but my parents missed it and instead sent my older sister for art classes.
What was a defining moment in your early development as an artist?
Actually I had three defining moments: quitting a boring office job and going back to college for a BFA in Communication Design, winning a college talent scholarship (I thought how it was my security blanket; if I won it, I couldn't be that bad!) and last, but not least, when I printed an impression of my first edition and my professor told me: "Virna this is F@#$% good!" As a graphic designer student not having previous printmaking experience, that was music to my ears.
Describe your driving force or motivation to create artwork.
Having hundreds of questions and zero answers. The urge to set free what comes from my senses. Having ideas and making sense out of them. Experimenting with different materials and techniques. Listening to my former professor and mentor Martin Kruck, who I owe great deal of my realization and confidence as an artist.
How do you grow and further challenge yourself as an artist?
Going to galleries and art shows, reading books about the subject matter I'm currently working on. I constantly challenge myself by being ambitious and by never being completely satisfied with my work. After finishing a piece, I can point out ten different ways I could do it better. What a horrible feeling; I'm my own worst critic!
What inspires you?
People. What's beneath their surfaces. Their emotions and instincts, their fears and frustrations, and their strengths and weakness.
There is a strong confessional tone in your artwork. How therapeutic is the process of creating your lithography and other works on paper?
Because some of my works are personal journeys and experiences, I struggle a bit. But after the battle of what I should share and what I should leave out, it gets to the point where I release tons of my own condensed emotions and the artwork just flows.
After completing a piece of artwork, do you feel a more heightened sensation of the feelings you wished to visualize or a sense of calmof having expressed and committed them to paper?
After finishing a piece and accomplishing what I wanted to visualize, I usually get anxious thinking about what I should explore next. I also feel an overwhelming need to do more artwork. The result is always a sense of satisfaction for being true to myself and what I was committed to in the first place.
Texture, light and shadow, the use of positive and negative space and a monochromatic color palette are integral in your pieces. You seem to have developed your own visual "language" in how these elements are used working in unison in a piece of artwork. How did you arrive at these symbolic and very graphic elements and devices?
Although lithography is the perfect avenue to capture the mood of my work because of the high contrast between dark and light, the monochromatic color palette and the drawing technique are crucial for the harmony of my art. I also use a drawing technique based on dry and liquid ink. Because of the different condsistencies of the ingredients, they resist each other. The blending of ink creates a tangled confusion of rich texture --- paths that represent the range of psychological and obscure emotions my artwork wants to communicate.
Describe your use of symbolism in your pieces. Do you wish the symbols to convey a specific or particular narrative about you, the artist, or do you wish for your artwork to be interpreted by the viewer?
My art is full of metaphors and a narrative itself. I'm a storyteller and dialogues play an important role in my artwork. I use anecdotes to catch viewers' attentions and drag them in what could be their story
rather than mine. At the end, the viewer has the last word. My confession gets lost when the viewer positions themselves in front of my work looks beyond my art. They may be looking at their reflection in a mirror. I create, they interpret.
What would you want a viewer to learn or take away from after experiencing your artwork?
I would like that the viewer identifies himself with my art. I would love to keep them interested in what I communicate. I'm also interested to know what type of impact my work has and how the viewer translates the story behind each piece.
What new artwork/s are you currently working on?
I developed a fascination for the dramatic results I get by using a monochromatic palette. I'm currently working on a book, a series of stories illustrated with pen and ink. I continue exploring the basic instincts of the human condition, this time focusing on female issues.
What would you order from a Japanese restaurant menu?
Edamame, shumai, a Rainbow Roll, a Volcano Roll and green tea ice cream for dessert.
Virna Vargas is an artist based in Jersey City, NJ. Learn more about
her, please visit :http://www.unitedcreators.com/VirnaVargas/
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