Edita Varinská transforms body-connected experience into swinging, soft, weightless line structures, which express character- and letter-like qualities of erotic play in perfection and super-personal clarity. In the „Erotogram“ the longing for total union and all-encompassing connection is expressed. What is felt by the human in every only realizable variation“ as a limit, as a resistance, as a cramping, unfolds in the works of the artist in manifold forms of an „erotic grammar“ which free rules only imagination and the invisible forces of Eros can give. This communicates itself to the drawing and painting hand. Not single figures and individuals, but „unions“ found the interest of the artist early still naturalistically seeing. But the more she sensed of the essence of the erotic, she had to approach the dynamic forms of an almost complete abstraction, which in the simple and intricate line comes closest to the strongest erotic impulses, tensions and their resolution.
Richard Kreidler, Wallraff- Richartz- Museum, Cologne
The paintings of Edita Varinská are entitled „EROTOGRAMS“. This places her among the representatives of erotic art. Here immediately arises the question of whether it is still possible today to be able to say something new in this field. If one looks at her pictures, one can only answer in the affirmative. The Slovakian-born artist not only possesses her own sign language, but she also expresses new content on the eternal theme of love with her paintings.
In 1969 she arrived at her own alphabet, her grammar. Starting from the Platonic doctrine EROS as a power of recognition, a desire for the beautiful, a mediator between the human and the divine, she gives her works from then on the name „Erotograms“. Her works depict neither portraits, nor concrete things, nor „retinal“ images. With her individual way of expression she rather manages to make visible on the picture surface the invisible sphere of the manifold longings and feelings that strive towards the higher, towards the more perfect.
The concrete merges with her in the essential, which is represented by the maximally abstracted form. The dimension of time and movement is transformed into the infinite and flowing, tension-charged line. The beautiful becomes visible by means of the entire composition of the picture and its harmony.To deal with the artistic work of Edita Varinská automatically means to raise the question of art historical sources and parallels. Even if her pictorial language and expression is unique to us, some comparisons can be found with the drawings of ancient Egypt, the vase painting of the ancient Greeks, the temple art of ancient India, the European medieval book illumination, the clear drawings of the Renaissance and especially the Art Nouveau and classical modernism of her art.
Jacques Toëröck, art historian
As a material of the picture carrier serves her from paper through canvas, as the most used supports, virtually any material. As a technique she draws with brush or pen, and paints with oil, acrylic, tempera, watercolor, pastel, or colored pencils. The first impression when looking at a brush drawing is a maze of circling lines. From this, one follows the direction of a line, and is surprised to find that it ends at the beginning, that is, it actually consists of a single line, and that figures in certain erotic positions develop in the process. These very simplified figures are not representational images of people, but neither are they merely abstract compositions. They represent the primal human need for love and union. That is why the compositions cannot lack the symbols of the human body that represent these erotic feelings. Here everything is in motion, suspension, and the figures seem to follow a high ballet choreography, in the sense of harmony and beauty.
Everything seems to be in motion; an impression that is further supported by the rising and falling of the flow of lines. It is clearly visible how the approach, once begun, without interruptions moves around opposites in order to return to the starting point… Flowing becomes solid, what has become disintegrates into its components – a labyrinth of love.
Ursula Peters, Von-der-Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal
Something far-eastern, something core-western, the sign language of the Chinese, the lyrical language of the Italians of the early Renaissance – both at the same time live in her „graphica pura“, with which term from modern Informel art one would like to signify her drawings.
W. Schwarz, writer, Landau
When I first encountered the expressive patterns of Edita Varinská, I immediately tried to find the source from which these interlacing lines are derived. Association is a way of approach, of reassurance. I also thought of medieval book illumination or the meshes of Islamic pictorial design, in which there must be no figuration; I also thought of Art Nouveau or Hans Arp… The rhythm of music in the form of Art Nouveau lines are the basic criteria of the expressive effort she consistently undertakes to synthesize opposites on a new level of mental and spiritual connection… The line alone is decisive and occasionally becomes more concrete or remains almost arrested in a kind of self-representation. At no point, however, does the line in these paintings exceed the dimension of the purely spiritual… The concrete utopia of Edita Varinská is the agreement of the supposedly contradictory in a state of relaxed poetry. And that is why her continuous reference to the ever-present tension is constructively productive stimulation without ceasing.
K. U. Reinke, journalist, critic, Düsseldorf
The exhibition bears the title ART IN MOVEMENT appropriate to the place where it takes place. The exhibition puts in a correlation on the one hand everything that is aesthetically perceptible, on the other hand everything that moves. Sport is also movement and movement is beautiful- and beautiful movement is art and impressive art needs not only the skillful movement of the hand, but and above all the movement of the mind, the strong feelings and the inner urge to creative work. Because here all imaginations, all fantasies must be transformed into images. And so one can find endless parallels between our noble sport of golf and the dynamic art of Edita Varinská.
Maria Bäumerich
In her works everything really seems to flow, move and float. We can see a network of endless lines, waves, curves, crossings, loops, snakes… And as if the line was created in one breath, and where a line begins – it also ends… We first see a mesh of lines on the picture surface. Before us stands a paradigm, a riddle. But if the eye follows these lines closely, amazing new worlds open up to it, the contents of which reflect our deepest soul. Line as a shorthand and seismograph of human feelings, longings and dreams…similarly as in music a composer evokes in us the concrete emotions with the abstract elements of notes and tones, Edita Varinská works with the intrinsically abstract medium of line and colored surface to evoke in us the most diverse individual feelings, longings and dreams. With masterfully simplified- abstracted forms of the human body she purposefully directs our eye into the invisible sphere of the psyche. The object of her representation is exclusively the human being in his relational process between man and woman. In doing so, Edita Varinska is never concerned with depicting reality, concretizing it, or portraying it. In her pictures it is always about the idea of the represented, thus about the beautiful in the philosophical sense of the word. To the beautiful belongs art, music, literature, philosophy, dance and sporty movement, but above all love in its size, harmony and variety from tenderness to passion.
Edita Varinská was born in Slovakia, but her adopted country has been the Federal Republic of Germany for more than 30 years. Here, after studying art still in her old homeland, she has developed her own, very individual artistic language. A modern language of expression, in which she treats the old and well-known theme of love in a new way.
Dr. Milan Matläk, Counsellor of the Embassy of the Slovak Republic
If we look at the work of Edita Varinská, despite her international artistic expression, we can ask ourselves the following question: what is so specifically Slovak in her art?
Edita Varinská spent her childhood and youth in Slovakia. During that time she stored in her unconsciousness what is essential and characteristic for this country and people, unknown in the world until recently. Don’t you feel the lines, waves, arches, curves and ellipses, the gentle shapes of the hills and the winding and lolling rivers of her old homeland? And in the dynamism and tension of the composition, does one not feel the majesty of the mountains and the power of the wild, ice-clear streams? Is not the need for beauty and harmony in the shaping and colorfulness of Edita Varinská’s paintings a reflection of the beauty of the Slovak landscape? And finally, is not her primary preoccupation with the theme of love an echo of the memory of the beautiful Slovak folk songs?
Edita Varinská is an extraordinary artist, characterized by a very mature and equally extensive oeuvre. To deal with her artistic work automatically means to raise the question of art historical sources and parallels. Even if her pictorial language and expression is unique and very individual, some comparisons with the drawings of ancient Egypt, the vase painting of the ancient Greeks, the temple art of ancient India, the European medieval book illumination, the clear drawings of the Renaissance and, above all, the Art Nouveau and classical modernism can be proved. By the way, Edita Varinská herself repeatedly points out the roots and continuity of her art in the history of art.
In her essence, however, she is most related to Maria Sibylla Merian, who lived in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Similar to the German painter, engraver and naturalist who painted realistic pictures of insects and flowers of scientific and artistic value during her travels through Europe and South America, Edita Varinská also combines sharp observations of nature with a high artistic potential. This inclination and urge for immersion, thoroughness, accuracy and scientific truth has manifested itself in Edita Varinská since her early youth: thus she has always been a keen observer of her surroundings, be it objects, nature or, above all, people. The scale of her interests is very wide, with zeal and rare thoroughness she pursues, besides fine arts, the studies of history, literature, linguistics, music, philosophy, technology, botany and biology, and devotes herself to classical dance.
She then applies her experience, research and knowledge to her artistic work. Under this sign, for example, she created more than thirty charming books with images and text, all of which she dedicated to her son.And just as Maria Sibylla Merian was a pioneer in her time with her artistic work, so is Edita Varinská today. She is considered to be the painter of erotic art. In fact, she has given this eternal and therefore truly not new theme a completely new, unusual and very individual pictorial language. A pictorial language whose „grammar“ and mode of expression she invented in 1969 and which she still uses today in an astonishing variety. Edita Varinská treats the theme of love with its constant repetition and diversity and does not shy away from any taboo. But the way she expresses the different, even the most daring facets of eroticism is unusual: it does not offend the eye, it is free of indecency, of frivolity. On the occasion of an exhibition opening, Helmut Breitfeld said that „the eroticism in Edita Varinská’s paintings seems godly…“ How does she manage to reconcile the supposedly incompatible? As for the paintings themselves, i.e. their visually perceptible design, their individual forms – they seem to consist of infinite, light lines, which turn, wind, float and loop, only to find their beginning again at the end. These forms, the viewer notices at first glance, associate strongly abstracted human figures, namely female and male figures. Edita Varinská reduces the natural forms to the essential, to the original forms. Before the eyes of the viewer, encryptions are created in which body and spirit merge in a highly artistic way – a true hymn of harmony between man and woman.
Edita Varinská calls her works Erotograms® and thus ties in with the Platonic concept of Eros – as used by the Greek philosopher in his Symposium. The art of Edita Varinská thus represents the idea of love, but beyond that also the level of earthly love in its diversity and variability.
Dr. Daniel Borszigh, journalist
The paintings of Edita Varinská bear the name „EROTOGRAMS“. She clearly counts herself among the representatives of erotic art. So the question arises, is it still possible today to express something new in this field? If we look at the pictures of Edita Varinská, we can only answer in the affirmative. The Slovak-born artist not only has her own visual language, but also adds new content to the eternal theme of love through her art.
Edita Varinská completed her art studies in her home country in 1966. After marrying a German, she moved to the Federal Republic, where she now lives and works as an artist. Her new environment confronted her forcefully with new ideas and impulses – from literature, ballet, music and art. She eagerly absorbed them and for a long time tried to express herself in the various artistic styles that emerged as „isms“ at the time, but did not yet find the language she unconsciously sought to express her inner feelings and visions. In 1969, she made her breakthrough. She established her own alphabet, her grammar, her own mode of expression. Based on Plato’s theory of beauty (see Plato, Symposium), she called her works „erotograms“: Her paintings reflect neither portraits nor concrete objects, neither pure „retinal“ perceptions nor verisimilitude. Rather, with her individual language of expression, she succeeds in making visible on the surface the invisible sphere of man’s manifold but universal longings and feelings. In her works, not only the idea of love itself is expressed, but also its human element in all its diversity. This includes everything that strives for the higher, the perfect, as expressed in her cycles on Goethe, music or philosophy. The concrete merges with the essential, which is represented by the entirely abstracted form. The dimension of time and movement is transformed into the eternal and flowing line, full of tension. The beauty is illuminated by the overall composition of the painting and its harmony. Nowadays, given the many apocalyptic images created in and of our world, it is unusual and seems to border on „dissidence“ that an artist strives to express beauty in art, as in the works of Edita Varinská.
Charles Grosner, Journalist
Edita Varinská has presented her works in many successful solo exhibitions in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland and the USA.
Further articles about Edita Varinská can be found in the following catalogs:
1971 New Market of Artists, Cologne
1971 Exposition 1971 – Féderation internationale culturelle féminine
1971 Italia 2000, Napoli
1972 Galeria Bördecke, Zurich
1972 Neumarkt of the artists, Cologne
1973 La sonda – revista internationale
1982 Realists in Wuppertal
1982 Umelci vo Wuppertali, Kosice
1985 Free market for contemporary art, Dortmund
1989 The female gaze, Una
1990 Art in the square, Wuppertal
1991 State Gallery, Banska Bystrica
1992 Homage to Gyula Szabo, Lucenec
2000 Wuppertal Artist Directory, Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal
2001 VII Watercolor – Trienale, Lucenec
2005 Fair magazine
Articles / portraits about Edita Varinská and her works in:
1982 magazine „Kulturpolitische Korrespodenz“ (portraits of artists)
1984 Illustrated magazine „Slovensko“ No. 3
1986 Illustrated newspaper „Czechoslovak Life“ No. 8
27.10.1995 Newspaper „Slovenska Republika
01.04.1998 Newspaper „Contact
06.08.1998 Newspaper „Vedomosti
07.10.2000 Newspaper „Smer dnes
11.10.2000 Supplement of „Smer dnes“ newspaper
10.10.2002 Newspaper „Stiavnicke noviny
21.02.2003 Newspaper „Contact
19.03.2003 Weekly newspaper „Literarny tyzdennik“.
12/2006 Kürschners Handbuch der Bildenden Künstler-Germany-Austria-Switzerland, K.G.Saur publishing house, Munich-Leipzig
12/2006 Slovnik ceskych a slovenskych vytvarnych umelcu 1950-2006 (Encyclopedia of Czech and Slovak visual artists 1950-2006),Publisher:Vytvarne centrum Chagall,Ostrava
Authors‘ catalogs:
1981 For the exhibition at the Epikur Gallery, Wuppertal, Germany
1991 For exhibition in the Gallery of the City of Bratislava, Bratislava
2005 For the exhibition at Magazin Verlag GmbH, Düsseldorf
2009 Catalog BBK