Brigitta Varadi is a multimedia artist who delves into tradition, craft, and the everyday rituals of working life. She investigates themes of sustainability and cultural heritage through a combination of research, material experimentation and community engagement. Interweaving notions of fine art and craft, labor and heritage, Brigitta focuses the attention on the importance of traditions in an age of mass production and the global economy.
Brigitta examines the disappearing traditions and daily activities of small, secluded communities around the world: her grandmother mopping up her kitchen floor several times a day, the “liberty” tea made by inhabitants of New York State, the marking system of the dwindling community of shepherds in Ireland and the breuccio, a piece of red silk sewn into a sachet to hold coarse salt, shared between women to protect from evil spirits, in rural Italy.
One of Brigitta's latest project MARKINGS gathers together and explores the different marks used by farmers to identify their sheep in the North West region. With the use of traditional techniques and a system of marks used by shepherds, her works examine the mechanics of remembering and reminding. Creating a dialogue with farmers and place the project also opens on to a broader reflection concerning the signs and forms of identification humans use to identify animals, plants and territories.
"Indeed, embedded into these artworks—literally felted and matted, smeared onto their surfaces—is a history of labor and tradition: men’s and women’s, commercial and domestic, craft and fine art. Like Pollock straddling his drip paintings, Varadi crouches atop the wool as she felts it, counting, rolling a single piece—the fleeces of five sheep—up to 25,000 times. She works each textile as if making pastry, turning it to ensure even shrinkage as its wet fibers hook together. The physical properties of wool fight back, taxing Varadi’s body as she transforms it from raw material into singular artwork."
excerpts from essay by Andrea Alessi
(Dowload full essay Marking Memory or link to original article: Marking Memory)
