2023 Senior Exhibition Artists

Genevieve Varela

Art + Design: Photography | Art History Minor

About Genevieve Varela

Genevieve Varela is a photographer based in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. She received her BFA in Photography with a minor in Art History from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2023. Her interest grew after taking her first photography class in college.

Statement

Something I live by is the fact that art is subjective, and that includes all forms of art. In my experience, this was relevant especially when it came to abstract art, which is something I am often drawn to. Abstract art expresses itself through the use of line, gesture, color, shape and form in a way that is often different from other art. It allows you to use more of your imagination to explore the reasoning behind the artwork’s existence. This is what attracted me to recreating abstract art in the form of photographs.

I am influenced by the abstract work of Piet Mondrian. His use of primary colors, neutral tones and lines was more engaging to me compared to other forms of art, which did not share his more experimentalist and cubism-inspired style. The photographers Uta Barth and Barbara Kasten achieved this idea with their work as well. Kasten’s goal was to make viewers question their perception space and light in her work, creating confusion and uncertainty between surface, shape and shadow. Barth’s goal was to put emphasis on the passage of time by using her camera to observe natural lighting as it changes during the day, looking at how humans see the world compared to a camera.

The goal of Chromatic Configuration is to create a series of photographs that explore the use of abstraction, color, shapes and illusion. In this series, the viewer will be left questioning what they are looking at, studying the shapes and illusionary space created to develop their own understanding of the work. I create depth and illusion through the use of colored plexiglass, a white box, and one form of lighting to cast different combinations of shapes, structures and colors onto a seamless white background. After studying the results of the composition, I then make changes and take note of the end product to enhance the end result.