Vicki Varvaressos

Vicki Varvaressos is an Australian contemporary figurative expressionist painter. Sometimes referred to as a “transitional artist”, her painting style and subject matter has evolved throughout her career. Many of her works are of women and their experiences in Australia.

“All of my work has been a reflection of what I’m interested in. The early work is very much issues, and there were other issues apart from feminism, but the feminism stuff was there. Then the images became much more internal — ‘human existence'". - Vicki Varvaressos

Biography

Born in Sydney, Australia in 1949, Vicki Varvaressos studied at the National Art School in Sydney from 1968 to 1971 at the East Sydney Technical College. Her paintings throughout the following decade emulated the feminist concerns of the 1970's especially the representation of women in the media. She travelled extensively throughout Europe in 1978. In later years, her subject matter shifted towards reflecting a more personal experience. Varvaressos currently lives and works in Sydney.

Early Work

Early in her practice Varvaressos' work was more political in contrast with the subtly evolved practice of later years. Straight out of art college, political subject matter was used as a foothold in Varvaressos’ career as a professional artist, but was not integral to her direction moving forward.

"I was very involved in resident action and feminism. It was 1975, it was the time of our 'Bloodless Coup', they call it the dismissal, and that was reflected in the works that I was painting" - Vicki Varvaressos

She paired paintings with explicit titles such as: Rethink your face, A hat from abroad, and Bang Lang. These titles suggested a political position and informed the tone of her early work. Varvaressos attributes this focus on political statements to the changing times in the 1970's. Politics is something she would not pursue in her later works.

Later Work

In her work from the past two decades, her paintings evolved from figurative to highly abstracted forms. Her subject matter drew from her own emotional responses to everyday events. Her paintings employ a "murky" colour palette, which adds to the crudeness of her work, and her aesthetic is draw from the inconsistencies of her life. Her paintings are formed from her head and can only be viewed wholly as an image once completed.

“Now that her art has evolved, keeping calm and ‘just’ painting is more of a concern and ‘the content has become much more internal’” - Cultural Director:

Varvaressos is represented in the collections of NGA, NGV, Artbank, AGNSW, University of NSW, , University of Tasmania, Gold Coast Collection and private collections in the UK, Europe, USA and Australia. Each year since 1975, Varvaressos has had annual solo exhibitions in Sydney, and each year in Melbourne since 1980. She is part of the Cruthers Collection of Women's Art.

Major Exhibitions

Paintings: Figurative and Non-Figurative (1992)

Varvaressos’ exhibition ran from March 18 to April 4, 1992, at the Niagara Gallery in Richmond, Victoria. The works exhibited were: ‘Woman With Lamp and Flowers’, ‘Woman Sitting’, ‘Girls With their Mother’, ‘Woman Over Chair’, ‘Woman Running’, ‘Mary at Six Months: ‘What have I done?’’, ‘Woman with Candles’, ‘Girl in her Room’, ‘Table Trio’, ‘Swivel’, ‘Tumbling’, ‘Fifiefofum’, ‘Black and Green Tangle’, ‘Not - OM’ and ‘Woman and Child’.