On a rather dreary day this January, the fog seemed to lift a little as friends, family, coworkers, and past muses flocked to the Sarofim School of Fine Arts to both mourn and celebrate a life well lived. This heartfelt celebration honored the art, life, and continuing legacy of Southwestern professor Victoria Star Varner. Her profound influence on both the creative and academic world is not forgotten and will continue to inspire us all. Varner, who preferred to be called Star, began her tenure at Southwestern in 1985, retiring in 2023 due to a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. During those thirty-eight years, she curated forty-five exhibitions at the on-campus art gallery, twelve of which were made in tandem with the Brown Symposium. Her work has graced the walls in ten different countries and now returns to the halls she once walked. The exhibition being shown, Star Varner: A Retrospective, features pieces from her Crossed Paths series and The Mysteries Revisited installation.
The Crossed Paths and Centripetal Forces series resemble a tangled web, creating connection and movement within an enclosed space. Both series feature shapes like circles and squares, marked with engraved lines. According to Varner’s own artist statement, the centripetal force of a spinning rope acts as a metaphor for “the forces that pull people toward intellectual, social and political centers”. The motion of the lines, held tightly by structured form, convey a movement and a sense of freedom within certain bounds. Varner’s message expands onto a global scale, questioning the ways in which “Americans leave traces worldwide through political and social means”, thus creating a convoluted web. She invites us to consider the structure, movement and tension in these pieces, urging us not only as individuals but as a nation to reflect how influences shape our lives and how we influence the lives of others.
Also featured in the exhibit is a very different storytelling style, The Mysteries Revisited, which is an installation piece fit inside a freestanding architectural framework. Varner described this work as a “feminist reinterpretation of Room of the Mysteries”. Situated on the outskirts of the ancient city of Pompeii, the Villa of the Mysteries was buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius only to be excavated by 1909 and restored by 2015. The villa is most famous for a particular room, the Room of the Mysteries that inspired Varner’s piece. The room, which was once a triclinium (ancient dining room), features scenes of a mysterious ritual which may have been an initiation ritual. Varner’s The Mysteries Revisited begins similarly to the ancient work, but introduces new figures and differing scenes “to invite expanded interpretations of contemporary women’s roles.” This installation features human and human-like figures at similar size to true humans, therefore making the experience much more lifelike than simply viewing a smaller figural piece.
The most touching piece was The Rising Tide of Hope. This piece was created during Varner’s last months of life. Inspired by Ruyard Kipling’s “When Earth’s Last Picture is Painted”, which envisions the Christian heaven as a place of work, art, and life, Varner interprets her diagnosis as a rising tide of hope. She instills the hope that people can find meaning and comfort in her work and wants to continue to inspire artists and create even after passing. Her idea of hope rising as a tide in the face of terminal illness is a powerful statement that speaks both to her perseverance as a person and her artistic vision. Her ability to take such complex themes and distill them into visual language deeply resonated with her audience. In a world that can often feel fragmented, she encouraged us to consider how we are all connected – through the web of beliefs and actions, through the past and the coming future, and through the ever-rising tide of hope. Unfortunately for us, The Rising Tide of Hope is an unfinished work as Varner’s illness prevented her from completing it.
Star Varner: A Retrospective will be showing in the fine arts gallery until February 9th, 2025. Star will next be featured at Southwestern University’s Brown Symposium, March 4-6, 2025. This next exhibit, alongside with the one up now, will showcase her inspiring contributions to the Southwestern community and beyond. Her work continues to inspire, challenge, and remind us of the enduring power of connection, creativity, and hope.
“And those that were good shall be happy…They shall splash on a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets’ hair…”, Ruyard Kipling, “When Earth’s Last Picture is Painted”