Co(r)vid Love:
Warner Varno master teaching artist based in Syracuse, NY. She creates large, medium and small scale mixed media paintings. Recently, graduating with an MFAIA from Goddard College, Warner developed a unique practice of presencing (Arawana Hayashi and SPT: Social Presencing Theatre) through the visual arts. In her current artwork, Warner has employed the crow as her main actor and storyteller, due to crow’s undeniable relationship to humans. Warner identifies with the crow, building a symbolic camaraderie, similar to the character Meridian in Elizabeth Church’s novel, The Atomic Weight of Love, which greatly influenced her current body of artwork, Co(r)vid Love.
Her “crow sketches” or “crow conversations” layer, sticker-like on top of the embodied, somatic, painting ground toward a form of truth-telling about relationship, family and communication-to our bodies, to ourselves, to each other, and to the natural world; and carry themes around love, the passage of time and memory, survival and a desire to thrive, while exploring the complexities of partnership, pain, and how to adapt in relationship to our post Pandemic world; how to live well in this modern life.
Warner’s paintings surfaces are reminiscent of graffiti and street art and carry within them the spontaneity of the moment in which they are created, fully embracing, and even extoling the Wabi-Sabi in both life and art, and valuing the power that play, surprise and reclaiming our own attention has in our lives. These crows have something to say. They are in conversation with each other, with themselves and with the state of the world around them. Artist Statement, Artisan Gallery, Broome County Arts Council.
