Elke Varga
Of Folds and Traces
21.02.18 – 10.03.18

Elke Varga explores the complex nature of light, colour, and vision. The understanding of colour as a measurable and quantifiable material is important in many industrial and technological processes, yet colour may also be understood as a qualitative and relational space.

Of Folds and Traces investigates the theory of complementary contrasts where colours that are located in opposition to one another on the colour wheel are thought to complement each other. In choosing to work with the CMYK colour model rather than the Red, Yellow and Blue colour model the work conflates contemporary printing and image reproduction technologies with the analogue practice of painting.

The paintings can be understood as colour experiments that test the theory of complementary colours. The translucent materiality of the silk support and the luminous properties of the watercolour allude to the fugitive nature of light and colour. In focusing on the idea of colour as experience the work attempts to articulate an understanding of colour that is both poetic and philosophical.

Elke Varga currently lives and works in Melbourne. She received her Masters of Fine Art from Monash University, Melbourne in 2015. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Art and Postgraduate Diploma in Visual Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. Elke has held solo exhibitions at TCB, Melbourne and Peloton, Sydney. She has exhibited work in group exhibitions including: Unhidden, Counihan Gallery (2017), The MADA Master of Fine Art Graduate Exhibition Monash University, Melbourne (2016), The Fremantle Print Prize, Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth (2015), I always read by listening to the text, Platform, Melbourne (2014), Ruler, Pencil, Time, Block Projects, Melbourne (2012), and The Substation Contemporary Art Prize, The Substation, Melbourne (2011). She was a founding member of 1st Floor Artist and Writers Space. She has worked as a tutor in Visual Culture and Theory at Federation University in Ballarat and as a sessional lecturer in the Drawing Program at MADA, Monash University.