Blog — Kathy Varadi

Meteorologists and chemists claim that contemporary sunrises and sunsets are more brilliant and colorful than in the past because of air pollution from air borne particles and chemicals. In the movie “Manufactured Landscapes” (2006) there are phenomenal scenes of the effects of global industrialization on the natural world, but the director deliberately avoids social and political comments, leaving that task to the audience. And for them, the sights and sounds are beyond belief and the fear of the end of the world is inescapable. Although afraid of impending doom, the viewer is in a safe place, watching the movie and freely enjoying the amazing scenes of global overproduction.

A feeling of overwhelming awe and fear flows over the observer like fog in the painting “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” (1818) by Caspar David Friedrich. Misty fog over mountains, horrific storms at sea, crashing thunderstorms all remind viewers of natural powers greater than themselves. Great philosophers such as Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant described this sensation in their treatises on beauty and the sublime. In their writing they made references to God-made entities such as nature, infinity and the cosmos.

By adding a new dimension to the philosophies of the sublime by Burke and Kant the Neosublime offers an answer. Neosublime refers to the sensations of pleasure and fear someone experiences when observing catastrophic earth-shattering global events like climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and political turmoil and chaos, and then they realize these events are not the result of god or nature, but of humans. Each one of these events are the result of humans affecting the world and not that long ago.

YouTube for complete presentation: https://youtu.be/bMuniix-0iE

Kathy Varadi, Neosublime 1, 2020, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. $1200 — Kathy Varadi, *Neosublime 1,* 2020, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. $1200

Kathy Varadi, Neosublime 2, 2020, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. $1200 — Kathy Varadi, *Neosublime 2,* 2020, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. $1200

Kathy Varadi, Neosublime 3, 2020, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. $1200 — Kathy Varadi, *Neosublime 3*, 2020, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. $1200

Kathy Varadi, Neosublime 4, 2020, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. $1200 — Kathy Varadi, *Neosublime 4*, 2020, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. $1200

Kathy Varadi, Neosublime 5, 2020, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. $1200 — Kathy Varadi, *Neosublime 5,* 2020, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. $1200

Kathy Varadi, Neosublime 6, 2021, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 inches $800 — Kathy Varadi, *Neosublime 6,* 2021, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 inches $800

kathy.varadi@gmail for purchase information

January 13, 2020 Monday

First day of class!! I’m really excited about this new journey! Was going to take 1 or 2 classes, right. I’m taking 4! Contemporary Art History, Graduate Studio on MW, Graduate Studio on TR and Grad Figure Drawing. Yay! Can’t wait to get started!

Fine Arts Building, will be spending a lot of time here!

January 16, 2020 Thursday

Started a painting form this photo that Kim Turner took in downtown Savannah in 2018 on a 48 x 64 onto a panel Kalie gave me a couple years ago. It speaks volumes about the Anthropocene, humans affecting the earth in a big way! Here’s the photo.

Kim’s photo. I have her permission to paint it!

Had to repair some transportation damage that poked a couple holes in the panel. Turned out ok with some wood bondo and handsanding!

January 17, 2020 Friday

We’re going to have visiting artists from Savannah critique us today. They are SCAD grads who are primary artists at Widowmaker! Michael Horton, founder, Brett Spencer and Will Penny. I know Will and definitely know about Michael and Brett. All make great art. At the visiting artist critique they gave me some great tips on a couple of my following paintings that I did this past year.

“Sea Level Rise”, 2019, oil on canvas, 52 x 52 inches

“What’s Happening Here?”, 2019, oil on canvas, 46 x 64 inches

Some comments were to continue to do a lot of plein air painting to get the feel of the sublime. Look into climate change as a hyperobject as described in Timothy Morton’s book “Hyperspace.” Be more clear on what I’m trying to say by staging figures to give message. Look at Ansel Adams, Richard Schmid and Caspar David Friedrich’s “Wanderer Above Sea of Clouds.” Consider making larger art in public spaces. These could be models. Great ideas!

January 20, 2020 Monday

Going to start an interesting assignment in Grad Studio TR where we subscribe to an academic journal and then write a summary of each article. I’m going to get the magazine “Frieze”. The issue that I’m going to summarize has articles about the environment and climate change, Nov-Dec 2019.

January 22, 2020 Wednesday

Studio Visit with Prof. Jason

Regarding the Cargo Ship painting with discussed the environmental impact and economics of shipping in the transatlantic shipping lanes. The book “Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World” by Timothy Morton speaks of thought concepts as objects in a larger context. Whoa. Book description on Amazon:

“Global warming is perhaps the most dramatic example of what Timothy Morton calls "hyperobjects" - entities of such vast temporal and spatial dimensions that they defeat traditional ideas about what a thing is in the first place. In this book, Morton explains what hyperobjects are and their impact on how we think, how we coexist with one another and with nonhumans, and how we experience our politics, ethics, and art.

Moving fluidly between philosophy, science, literature, visual and conceptual art, and popular culture, the book argues that hyperobjects show that the end of the world has already occurred in the sense that concepts such as world, nature, and even environment are no longer a meaningful horizon against which human events take place. Instead of inhabiting a world, we find ourselves inside a number of hyperobjects, such as climate, nuclear weapons, evolution, or relativity. Such objects put unbearable strains on our normal ways of reasoning.

Insisting that we have to reinvent how we think to even begin to comprehend the world we now live in, Hyperobjects takes the first steps, outlining a genuinely postmodern ecological approach to thought and action.'‘

The network of global commerce certainly effects climate change and global warming. Posing my artwork in the terms of Climate Change as an hyperobject maybe very interesting. Going to get the book.

January 27, 2020 Monday

Contemporary Art History coming up. Eek! Here’s what studying for it looks like:

Desk at home with example of studying class notes.

January 30, 2020 Thursday

Update on the cargo ship painting. Not sure what the title will be. Definitely needs to include the context globalization and the impact on the environment. I still like the Hyperobject idea and trying to finish the book “Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World” by Timothy Morton that I downloaded Audible.

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February 3, 2020 Monday

After a Skype meeting with Sharon Laughton on January 21 about the artist residency Summer 2020 in upstate New York at Chautauqua Institute I decided to apply because it is forward thinking and has an impressive faculty. Fingers crossed. Will hear in May.

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February 10, 2020 Monday

Communication in art is important!

The general definition of discourse is people talking together. The technical definition of discourse in art theory is different. Art discourse is interests come together so there is an underlying assumption. For example a medical discourse is about healing people. Artwork should be arguement driven and the sequence is you have a good idea, then you figure out what conversations it is sparking or contributing to? What has been going on in the art world? Then how does your work align, undermine, etc in the artistic conversations or discourse in the art world? “So What?” refers to why does your art matter- for example, It is the difference between an article in the encyclopedia and a newspaper article. There is a three step XYZ technique for getting to “So What” that goes like this; X- What is your work asking about? Y- Ask a bigger question? Z- Ask an even bigger question. Keep digging deeper. How can you connect it to contemporary? How does it relate to now? Why would we care? So What?

After figuring out your so what then comes a discursive entanglement statement. A Discursive Entanglement Statement has three parts, Problem/Question, Arguement/Solution and the So What? Hmmm. This is challenging to say the least!

February 13, 2020 Thursday

Photos on progress of cargo ship:

1/29/20 Flesh color seacrates speak of ship traveling around the world to different cultures!

2/1/20 Staged with reference photo in my studio at GSU. I want to have it done for the critique in a couple days, doubt I’ll make it.

2/3/20 On display for class critique. Not done yet. Ugh.

February 20, 2020 Thurs

I’ve been thinking about some things that Alicia La Chance said to me about my work. She is an large format multimedia artist from Missouri who visited our art program recently and visited my studio to offer suggestions. She said my cargo ship painting looked like it was carrying candy coated objects that are seductive leading to getting more and more stuff. The title that I chose for the cargo ship is “How Much is Enough?” This fits with over abundance verse minimalism which is being practiced more and more. I like the idea of relating global commerce to a candyland! Another idea would be to have the ship travel the world and make paintings of it in different countries, or seaports, around the world. Savannah is the fourth largest seaport in the US and is very relatable to where I live. The idea of putting two processes together came up when we discussed some old inkwork on gessoboard that I did last year. I felt like it needed something else. She said to consider painting my ship in oil or acrylic on these nonobjective art pieces. Very interesting. I’d like to try it. Her ideas were definitely creative and helpful.

Delray, 2018, ink on gesso panel, 16 x 18 inches — *Delray,* 2018, ink on gesso panel, 16 x 18 inches

February 20, 2020 Thursday

I’ve been noticing the very tall Long Leaf Pine trees on campus and along Route 16 on the way to Statesboro campus from my home in Savannah. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings as I see them. I’ve often enjoyed traveling on Route 16 in the past because of the lush foliage and shade from the pine trees. This past year the trees have been cut down, bit by bit. No one knows why the tree holocaust is happening. The land is left bare and pools of dead water gather in the median strip and the side of the highway. I’ve admired these trees for years and now they are being torn down. Hard to watch. I’ve started taking pictures to show the effect of humans on the forest. The Long Leaf Pine population has decreased by 98% since Colonial times. Ugh. Here’s some photos that are informing me of possible paintings.

February 24, 2020 Monday

Long Leaf Pines on GSU campus near the Arts Building. I was attracted by the golden light of dusk on the trees.

Traffic stopped on Route 16 and I took this photo of the pine trees on the other side of the median. It has potential for a painting,

February 27, 2020 Thursday

In Figure Drawing class I’ve been drawing the image of a bust of David. I’m the only graduate student so Prof. Matt wants me to use oil paint with an indirect technique. I have an idea to use a this technique to do the pine trees on Route 16 painting that I’m doing showing the effect of humans on the environment. I’ve been carrying my ideas on the Anthropocene that I started last year.

March 2, 2020 Monday

I had an extra stretched canvas from the David project so I’ll try putting the Long Leaf Pines on it with the same indirect technique.

March 5, 2020 Thursday

Starting the new painting. Interesting abstract painting. This is a cool experiment.

March 9, 2020 Monday

I have another idea to represent the effect of humans, in particular global shipping commerce with the pine trees. I’d like to add a cargo ship on the Savannah River behind the pine tree line. Here’s a go at it.

March 12, 2020 Thursday

I like the abstraction of this painting and the mystery around the orange box in the background. It speaks to me of the destruction of the pine trees along Route 16.

March 16, 2020 Monday Spring Break

I’ve been thinking about incorporating the concept of the sublime in my landscape paintings. Prof Jason explained how there’s a difference between the everyday definition of the sublime to the philosophical concept by philosophers of old like Emanuel Kant. I’ve been reading about the urban sublime that contemporary artists are addressing. I’m going to explore this idea. It fits with the painting I started of the racing auto on Route 16 pine trees. I think I’m going to stop here with this painting. I like the abstraction and the sublime of the sunset sky. It’s a combination of the sublime in nature and in the urban environment. I like the tension it produces.

Adding the sky, while keeping the drawing of the trees.

March 19, 2020 Thursday Spring Break

As we left for Spring Break last Friday we heard somewhat unnerving reports of the coronavirus traveling from China and effecting Italy and Europe. I had a feeling that we weren’t going to return back to campus after the break and I spent the day loading my little trailer with the entire contents of my studio at GSU. I am glad I did. I’m pretty sure we’re not going back. I’ve got all my art stuff so I don’t have to back and try to get it. The college is shutdown on lock down. I’m kind of in shock about this situation. Memories of my epidemiology class are flashing back as I hear the news.

March 23, 2020 Monday Off for COVID 19 Faculty to prep for online classes

The COVID 19 virus is turning into a global pandemic. Colleges have extended Spring Break so that the faculty can prepare for teaching the rest of the semester online. We’ve getting some info on how things are going to change. By the way the cargo ship painting is nearing completion. Yay! I will have to finish the cargo ship at my studio in Savannah since the college will be closed indefinitely. So many things are int the air right now.

I made a test canvas to test my idea of adding a glaze to tone down the brilliant colors of the sea crate so it’s less like an illustration painting and a little more realistic. I’ll test different colors and shade on the test canvas. I included som… — I made a test canvas to test my idea of adding a glaze to tone down the brilliant colors of the sea crate so it’s less like an illustration painting and a little more realistic. I’ll test different colors and shade on the test canvas. I included some of the sky intentional to test colors.

As I added the glaze I added some mystery with the hidden eye of Big Brother perhaps. One student noticed the eye during the last critique.pretty excitinfg

March 26, 2020 Thursday Off for COVID 19 Faculty to prep for online classes

I’ve decided to turn the focus of my artwork to seeking the sublime while under the isolation of the COVID quarantine. Kant spoke about observing the sublime of nature, landscape, in regards to fear. The awe of seeing a natural event, hurricane, lightning, volcano explosion combined with observing from a safe place gives an interesting tension. I play on reading Kant’s treatises over this summer. The news of the pandemic is coming in fast and furious.

March 30, 2020 Monday First day of on line classes

I’ve been receiving instructions for dealing with the pandemic while finishing this semester. It’s going to be interesting. The syllabi of all the classes have been changed are being distributed. We will be doing figurative work for drawing while being confined to home. Self portraits may be a good idea. We have all lost a lifestyle and the concept of grieving a loss came to my mind. I’m going to combine all these ideas in one place. I remembered the research on the human grief cycle that was described by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross decades ago and took hundreds of selfies with my cell phone to get the emotions of each step

April 2, 2020 Thursday

Here are the photos I chose for each stage of the grief cycle.

April 6, 2020 Monday

In my research I found the following diagram of Dr. Kubler-Ross’s work. This is a generalized pattern and individuals can experience the emotions in any order and can have more than one emotion at the same time.

April 9, 2020 Thursday

I finished the cargo ship at my studio in Savannah with adding foliage, river and background Hilton Hotel.

April 13, 2020 Monday

Stage 1 Denial or shock of the grief cycle. I’m not a fan of doing self portraits, but I was able to become quite objective of the process.

Stage 1 Denial or Shock, 2020 oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches — *Stage 1 Denial or Shock,* 2020 oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches

April 16, 2020 Thursday

Stage 2 Anger. I decided to do these painting in the Grisaille technique of painting with burnt umber and white. The experience with David paid off!

Stage 2 Anger, 2020 oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inchesoil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches — *Stage 2 Anger,* 2020 oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches
oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches

April 23, 2020 Thursday

Stage 3 Depression. Including the hands on the face increased the intensity and emotion of the portrait.

Stage 3 Depression, 2020 oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches — *Stage 3 Depression,* 2020 oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches

April 27, 2020 Monday- Stage 4 Bargaining. The highlights in the eyes compliment the pleading facial expression.

Stage 4 Bargaining, 2020 oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches — *Stage 4 Bargaining,* 2020 oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches

April 30, 2020 Thursday - Stage 5 Acceptance The eyeglasses signify the decision to take charge and get serious in accepting the things that you can not change. The mask shows following the advise of the authorities to be responsible.

Stage 5 Acceptance, 2020 oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches — *Stage 5 Acceptance,* 2020 oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches

May 5, 2020 Monday

Description of the COVID-19 Grief Reaction Series

People are overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic and are drawn to watch the news. Yet they are frightened and find it difficult to watch even in the safety of their homes. People depend on others but are afraid to be near them. The pandemic has resulted in many losses; health, death, social interaction and lifestyle. My self-portraits represent the loss and grief caused by this hidden enemy as described by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her five stages of the grief cycle. The stages are Denial, Anger, Depression, Bargaining and Acceptance.

Final Critique by Professor Jason:

Hi Kathy,

These turned out to be really potent artworks. The literally in your face quality is an interesting choice. These would be much less intense or rich with meaning if you were depicted farther back in the picture space of the painting, in other words... but by crowding us on our side of the canvas and crowding your depiction of yourself on that side of the canvas, you've really ramped up the pressure.

The acknowledgement of the picture plane / painted surface by the painter (the canvas as surface to look at rather than as window to look through) is usually considered a device of modernist modes like cubism or abstract, used to dismantle representational painting. You've flipped that by cropping the image so severely that the boundaries of the canvas become pretty crucial to how we read / understand the representational image itself--a masterful incorporation of the object qualities of the canvas into the meaning of the work.

Speaking of close cropping of the image, recall comments earlier this semester about doing a close-cropped version of your cargo ship. The power of limits

I'll second Eric's commendation of your choice re: engaging the viewer in different ways with the different directions of your glance. You shift the overall feel from one of you feeling different ways within yourself (as an experiencer) in some canvases, to a kind of challenge or direct engagement with the viewer in others. Pretty cool. When you get a chance, look up the philosopher Emannuel Levinas, whose work is all about the role of the face in human experience, empathy and communication etc. His book Entre Nous is probably the best place to start but can be a difficult read--start by googling his name + face or faciality and see what comes up

The painting through the window on your website looks awesome too. That also references and resonates with the format of the canvas object, with the window frame referencing the modernist grid in some interesting ways. You're really on a roll here with bringing the various tricks of modernist abstraction back into the fold of representation. The window painting also updates Matisse's window paintings interestingly--except where his are of looking out over lush Mediterranean seascapes etc., yours has a different vibe during an era of lockdown and quarantine (and the different intensity of the Maine coastline rather than of Marseilles, or whatever)

Re: your mention of seeing the unseen etc., another book you might check out is Looking at the Overlooked (not about viruses, but a great book about representational painting). Eric, you might like this book too. Great work, thanks for all your efforts this semester, Jason

May 7, 2020 LAST DAY OF CLASSES!

Artist Statement - The Neosublime

Meteorologists and chemists state that contemporary landscapes are more brilliant and colorful than in the past because of air pollution. Although afraid of impending doom, the viewer is safe at home, or in a movie theater, and is free to enjoy the amazing scenes of global overproduction. Immanuel Kant described this sensation in his treatises on beauty and the sublime referencing to God-made entities such as nature, infinity and the cosmos. Until recently my artwork has been informed by the effects of man-made industrial global warming and environmental destruction. This contemporary reaction of experience and reason to the Anthropocene can be called the neosublime. This phenomenon is now replicated during the evolving COVID-19 pandemic. People are overwhelmed by its enormity and are drawn to watch the news. Yet they are frightened and find it difficult to watch even in the safety of their homes. People depend on others but are afraid to be near them. The world is fighting a new war (neowar) against a man-made invisible enemy (biological warfare). In isolation I look at the window of my home to see the sublime. The pandemic has resulted in many losses, health, death, social interaction, lifestyle and freedom of movement. The loss and grief caused by this hidden enemy can be seen in my self-portraits of the five stages of grief as described by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. The stages are Denial, Anger, Depression, Bargaining and Acceptance. Once again, the question is asked, how does the artist depict the unseen?

Last painting of Spring Semester!

Painted from a photo taken inside a shed next to the Pemquid Point Lighthouse in Maine, painting this speaks of the isolation and loss of the quarantine lock down during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic.