Kathy Vargas 2024 Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts | Artist Talk

As Kathy Vargas reflects on her remarkable decades-long career in the arts—as an artist, art administrator, mentor, activist, and curator—"Light Needs Shadow Needs Light…" serves as a meditation on the past, present, and future, exploring themes of life, love, and death. Through four distinct series of meticulously composed, hand-painted, silver gelatin photographs, Vargas weaves together the personal and the political, layering references to fantastical elements from her father’s Mexican folklore and her mother’s devout Catholic beliefs.

Viewers are first introduced with the installation Shopping for Bargains, an ongoing exploration of the hidden costs of consumerism, where Vargas captures the intricate details of fabrics—lace, embroidery, and patterns—juxtaposed with highly discounted price tags. This series highlights the disparity between the visible cost of fast fashion and the often unseen price paid by laborers, critiquing the illusion of bargains and the true cost of consumption. It continues with The Living Move, featuring six blurred portraits, including a self-portrait, that evoke early 20th-century portraiture with subjects seated for long periods. These images of Vargas’s loved ones, layered with thorns, flowers, fabric, and writing, symbolize the essence of life and human connection.

Installed as a monumental cross, Oración: Valentine’s Day/Day of the Dead honors those lost during the AIDS epidemic, transforming grief into art and offering a profound meditation on mortality through the act of remembrance as resurrection. Finally, Este Recuerdo serves as a tribute to Vargas’s family sacrifices and the powerful women who raised her, merging personal and political narratives into a poignant visual history that reflects on her heritage and influences.

Each photograph serves as an example of the artist’s mastery of the darkroom and photographic process. The harmonious montage of layered exposures, recurring props, brushstrokes that infuse life into the images, and calculated scratches on the negatives invite viewers to investigate the magic in the in-between.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kathy Vargas was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, and began photographing in 1971 under the guidance of rock and roll photographer Tom Wright. She attended San Antonio College in the mid-1970s and was mentored by painter Mel Casas, who invited her to join the Chicano art group Consafo. She received her MFA degree with a concentration in Photography from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1984. From 1985 – 2000, she worked as the Visual Arts Program Director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio. From 2000 to 2013, she served as Chair of Art at the University of the Incarnate Word, where she is currently a Professor of Art/Photography.

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