Sophia Vari
b. 1940, Greece
Sophia Vari (b.1940, Athens, Greece) is a visual artist known for her investigations into form and balance, working across sculpture, collage, oil and watercolour. In 1958, she graduated from the École des Beaux Arts, in Paris.
Vari’s sculptures have evolved through several stages in the last few decades. While her early work from the 1960s onwards was mostly figurative, in the 1980s, Vari began to employ rounded abstract forms that suggested the human body. Eventually she began incorporating planar and constructed forms into her work, and by the mid-1990s she had begun to apply colour to the surfaces of her dynamic sculptures. This use of colour contributes to the movement of Vari’s pieces, and her sculptural works, created both on a monumental scale and as table pieces, appear to move autonomously as the viewer walks around them. Her work across all media shares a certain playfulness and liveliness, with compositions in collage, watercolour and paint pushing into the realm of dimensional space.
Vari’s monumental sculptures have been shown in public locations around the world. For each installation, she pays special attention to the way that her works are integrated with the cities in which they are exhibited. Vari is particularly concerned with the way in which the tactile quality of the patina surfaces can encourage a connection with her viewers, while the majestic scale of her public sculptures creates a strong visual impact.
Celebrated with almost 100 solo exhibitions to date over the course of her career, Sophia Vari has had museum exhibitions including Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy; the Palazzo Bricherassio, Turin, Italy; The Ludwig Museum, Koblenz, France; and more recently, the Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey. Solo exhibitions of Vari’s monumental sculptures in the public realm have taken place in cities including Paris, Rome, Montecarlo, Baden-Baden, Geneva, Pietrasanta, Athens, Madrid and Cartagena de Indias, among others.
Vari’s work is included in international public collections around the world, among them: museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague; Benaki Museum, Athens; Fondation Veranneman, Kruishoutem, Belgium; Foundation Basil and Elise Goulandris: Museum of Modern Art, Andros, Greece; Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; Fundación Botero, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogota; Musée de la Main, Lausanne, France; Museo de Medellin, Medellin, Colombia; Museo de Ponce, Puerto Rico; National Museum and Alexandros Soultzos Museum, Athens; National Pinacotheca, Athens.
Sophia Varis lives and works between Pietrasanta, Italy and Monte Carlo, Monaco.