Paloma Varga Weisz

PEDRO CERA

The work of Paloma Varga Weisz (b. 1966, Mannheim, Germany) explores themes of memory, mortality, transformation, metamorphosis, the uncanny, and the tragicomic. Art historical and literary resonances pervade her work. Varga Weisz subsumes influences of German folklore, Christian iconography, and Modernist sculpture into a distinctive personal style characterized both by playful Surrealism and emotional candor.
Although trained in woodcarving and known for her sculptural work, drawing occupies an equally important role in the artist’s practice. Using pencil, paper, and paint mixed with water, Varga Weis’s watercolors depict, like her sculptures, imaginary characters resembling surreal bodies from fairy tales. Their gender, action, and placement are usually left ambiguous, insinuating a dream-like setting where anything is possible but nothing certain. Stripped of any ties to time and place, the work questions thus the frequently ambiguous relation between truth and fiction, dream and reality.

Untitled, 2007
Watercolour and pencil on paper. 41 x 31 cm / 60 x 49 cm (framed).