כוכב חיים

Varda Breger was born in Israel, lives and works in Tel Aviv. She has displayed her works in more than twenty five solo exhibitions, and she has been invited and participated in many more group exhibitions and international symposia in Israel and abroad: Slovakia, Germany, Bulgaria, Italy, Finland, Austria and England.

She is a member of the Israel Forum of Ecological Art, the European Artists, and the Tel Aviv Artists and Sculptors Association. She was elected to AFC Artists for Conservation and ANF-Artists for Nature. In 2004, she was awarded the Franz Kafka Medal for Art by the Franz Kafka European Circle. Breger was invited to the prestigious Chianciano Biennale (Italy) and was awarded the Second Leonardo Prize for Work On Paper 2011, and the First Leonardo Prize for Work On Paper at the Chianciano International Art Award 2012.

The poems in “Planet of Life” were partly written to accompany the exhibitions and are divided into four sections: Nature’s Edge, The Second Gender, Africa Fluttering, and Wings Without Borders. The poems were composed by Breger in English and Hebrew. The English version is not a translation but a free writing on the same subject.

For the Website of Varda Breger Press here

The temperature at the core of the sun, so say the scientists, is roughly 16 million degrees Celsius. The lowest possible temperature, at which virtually all molecular motion ceases, is called Absolute Zero, and stands at minus 273 degrees Celsius. Somewhere, in the vast gulf that lay bare between 16 million and minus 273, the system of Sol contains a small rocky planet, where the temperatures range from minus 50 to plus 50 degrees centigrade all year round. A mere 100 degrees, from extreme to extreme, it is but a drop in the sea. And, indeed, this little planet has seas, oceans of liquid water. And oxygen. And protection from dangerous radiation. This little planet has all the right conditions for a great miracle to occur. And that miracle did occur. This little planet is Planet Life.

Varda Breger understands the miracle of Planet Life all too well. She herself comes from a professional scientific background, so she has a firm grasp on the physicalist-statistical explanations science gives for the creation of life on earth. She grasps them well, and seems to remain somewhat unimpressed by them. The dry technical explanation of science cannot satisfy the sense of wonder that accompanies a curious and life-affirming person upon her journey across Planet Life. It’s all so fragile. The balances are so delicate. The variety is mind-boggling, from the bull frog to the white rhino, life is a force that the intellect fails to comprehend and the emotions fail to contain. This, however, impresses Varda immensely, and rightly so.

However, it is of the very nature of Man that he tries to conquer the wonderful world of Nature. For that is the very essence of culture as such. The conflict between the world of Nature and the world of Culture is, therefore, inevitable. Unlike the migratory birds that Varda loves to paint, Man has largely given up the nomadic lifestyle, no longer trekking across plains, deserts and mountains with the seasons of the year. Man has built himself permanent dwellings in permanent settlements, and instead of adapting himself to the dictates of Nature, he tries to force Nature to adapt herself to the desires of Man. Working the land soon became enslaving the land, that is what we call ‘agri-culture’. Technological developments over the years, designed to improve Man’s quality of life, often times did so at the expense of natural resources. The technological prowess of the modern West has become so great, that it actually has begun to threaten natural aspects. Entire species of magnificent animals, like the tiger, the rhinoceros, and the eagle, have been brought to the brink of extinction. Planet Life is in danger.

The danger looming over Planet Life comes from the cultural world of Man. It makes sense that the same cultural world should bear the responsibility for warning against and warding off that danger. This is where Varda comes into the picture. Literally. She harnesses her art to the task at hand. One may issue a verbal warning. One may offer scientific explanations of the wrong-doings and detail the dangers. One may also print up some photographs in the newspaper, for they say that a picture is worth a thousand words. One may also – and this is our most significant option – show the problem, give expression to the pain, embody the injustice, all at once, thus manifesting a message that is so complex and concise that it leaves well its mark upon both the heart and the head. This is done by creating a work of art. By way of her unique paintings, Varda successfully puts her finger on the problem, warns against the inherent dangers, while arousing feelings of wonder on the one hand, and anxiety on the other. She brings the forces of life and death together through the artistic dialogue between beauty and ugliness. If a picture is worth a thousand words, dare I say that a painting is worth a thousand pictures?

Varda’s topics speak for themselves: Animals under the threat of extinction, animals that mankind simply puts under threat, migratory birds making their way to a summer home that may no longer exist, and amongst all this, the image of Woman, her natural mysteries and contradictions intact. Over the course of many years of systematic and sober work, Varda has perfected her unique style, a technique that serves her well. With the use of freely running paint that can flow naturally, Varda succeeds in developing enchanting dialogues between the flowing and the fixed, the free and the inhibited, the random and the deliberate. Varda’s images come to life from the energy generated by such unions of opposites. Streaming veins of color mingle with the antlers of a deer, the mane of a lion, and the feathers of a heron. Delicate tones of brown, green and red come together and fall apart in a tantalizing dance of gentle nymphs across a white pool of paper. Then, suddenly, the gentle image of an animal from Planet Life is rudely trod upon by a dirty boot or run over by a filthy tire. A regal vulture proudly bearing a red crown is cooped up behind a crude link fence. A pelican encrusted in the oil that spilled out upon his little patch of sea. A frightened fox timidly irking his way through a jungle of high-voltage power lines. An innocent little hedgehog before and after his tragic rendezvous with the wheels of a car… In the midst of all these, Varda strikes a distinct balance between the beautiful and the ugly that gives one serious pause for thought. Indeed, one of her paintings is worth a thousand pictures and a thousand thousand words.

Somewhere in the vast gulf that lay bare between plus 16 million and minus 273 degrees centigrade, somewhere in between the sun and the infinite, is a small miraculous planet. Planet Life. It is comforting to know that there are still good people watching over it.

 A Response by Riva Rubin

Under the wash of mud, blood, tire tracks and shoe prints, in a series of stunning paintings, Varda Breger explodes as an artist of tremendous emotional power. Layered images emerge like ghostly comments on the immediately perceived image. The stains of light in the soft eyes and on the skin of the doe momentarily deflect the viewer from the barbed wire that is lacerating it, the hedgehog lies beside the tire track. From the vulnerability of the little fox to the self-aware nobility of lioness and tiger, from  the rampant maleness of elephant and rhino, from the gold-steeped herons drinking at dusk, from swift to hawk, Varda Breger encompasses the swing from breathless love to anguish and back again that artists and lovers must face every day of their all embracing lives.