Professor of Art Star Varner and Instructor of Applied Music Katherine Altobello ’99 were among the many local artists, actors, and musicians who donated their talents at the Heart for Ukraine concert and art sale, held April 21 at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church in Austin. Varner donated an original animal drawing, while Altobello performed the iconic Rodgers and Hammerstein song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” alongside pianist Rick Rowley. This event raised more than $40,000, with all proceeds going to charities currently on the ground in Ukraine, including SeaStar Kids, Doctors Without Borders, and Lutheran World Relief. A video of the concert is available on YouTube.

—September 2022

President Edward Burgerand Professor of Art Victoria Star Varner presented an invited joint lecture in the Bridges Lecture Series at the University of Waterloo, Canada, on the connections between their original research in math and art on Nov. 21. The Bridges Lecture Series “aims to rediscover points of affinity among academic disciplines…and to bring them back into productive dialogue; to raise questions that are essential to scholars in Arts, Science, and Mathematics; and to provide specialists and non-specialists alike with compelling and enriching information that uncovers the possibilities and opportunities that exist on the bridge between disciplines. Our guiding goal is to coax audiences out of their intellectual comfort zones, and to transcend narrow discipline-specific avenues of academic inquiry.”

—November 2018

Professor of Art Victoria Star Varner’s artwork was selected for the 7e Internationale Exposition Estampes Bisannuelle Miniature (the 7th International Miniature Print Biennial Exhibition) organized by the Ottawa School of Art, Ontario, Canada. The exhibition brought together 260 works by over 100 artists from 20 countries. In addition, she and Technical Assistant and Exhibitions Coordinator Seth Daulton were invited to participate in Our Indiana: M.F.A. Selections, curated by Professor Gail Panske, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and Professor Ellen Price, Miami University, Ohio, for the Mid-America Print Council’s biennial conference held at the University of Wyoming.

—November 2018

Professor of Art Victoria Star Varner presented four works from her Crossed Paths series in the 38th Mini Print Internacional de Cadaques in Spain, which exhibited selected artists from 53 countries June 30Sept. 30 at Taller Galleria Fort in Cadaques. The exhibition is traveling to Galeri L’Etange d’Art in Bages, France, next.

—September 2018

Professor of Art Victoria Star Varner’s engraving from her Crossed Paths series was selected for the 2018 International Contemporary Miniprint of Kazanlak exhibition at the Kazanlak Art Gallery in Bulgaria, Europe. There were 450 works from 152 artists representing 40 countries. The international jury comprised Kouki Tsuritani (Japan), Renee Chevalier (Canada), and Peter Boyadjieff (Bulgaria).

—September 2018

Professor of Art Victoria Star Varner’s engraving from the “Crossed Paths” series of prints was selected for the Awagami Prize in the Footprint International Competition at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, Connecticut, by juror Susan Tallman from 319 prints by 166 artists representing 22 states and 18 countries. Tallman has written extensively on the history and culture of the print, as well as on issues of authenticity, reproduction and multiplicity. Her books include The Contemporary Print: from Pre-Pop to Postmodern (Thames and Hudson) and The Collections of Barbara Bloom(Steidl). Most recently she coauthored the catalogue for the British Museum exhibition, The American Dream: Pop to the Present, and is Editor-in-Chief of the journal and website Art in Print. Tallman’s writing has appeared in Art in America, Parkett, Print Quarterly, Arts Magazine and numerous books and museum catalogues. She currently teaches in the Department of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

—August 2018

Professor of Art Victoria Star Varner was invited by the Texas Commission of the Arts to serve on the jury panel for the Texas Young Masters Awards in Austin this past December.  In April 2018, she attended the Awards Ceremony at the Zachary Scott Theatre. The Texas Young Masters is a joint program of the Texas Cultural Trust (TCT) and the Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA). The Young Masters program was established to support talented young people and advance the creative economy by investing the future of the arts. The ceremony was attended by Texas’ First Lady Cecilia Abbott who serves as honorary chair. Since the program’s inception in 2002, the TCT and TCA have given 313 grants to 139 Young Masters and awarded $857,500 to aspiring artists from across the state.  

Varner was also a juror for the Imagine exhibition at Texas State University’s Round Rock campus held March–May 2018.

—May 2018

Professor of Art Victoria Star Varner’s artwork from her “Crossed Paths” series was selected for the exhibition “Small Format 2017” in Dublin, Ireland. Organized by Black Church Print Studio, the exhibition is being held at Library Project, a “cultural hub at the heart of Temple Bar, multidisciplinary in approach. The space offers visitors an open door to discover local and international contemporary art practices through a collection of publications and a variety of exhibitions and events.” Earlier this year, she exhibited three large drawings in her “Centripetal Forces” series at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in “Drawing Perspectives,” an invitational exhibition of five artists curated by Professor Barbara Fontaine White, who described her curatorial intent in the catalogue as follows, “’Drawing Perspectives’ celebrates a variety of approaches to drawing and demonstrates the complexity of content and media utilized today.”  Varner also exhibited five of her engravings at the VAM Gallery in Austin in “Eight from Texas,” curated by Professor Tim High, University of Texas. Lily Press in Washington, D.C., a fine art press, is currently publishing two editions of large prints, created by Varner at the press this summer with Master Printer Susan Goldman, owner and operator.

—September 2017

Professor of Art Victoria Star Varner had two prints selected for the 11th Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition 2017 at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, Connecticut, by Fredya Spira, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The juror reviewed 632 prints from 294 artists from 24 countries and 32 U.S. states. Varner’s prints, “Crossed Paths: Short Version” and “Path Over Tienanmen” will be on view from June 4—Aug. 27 at the Center.

—May 2017

Professor of Art Victoria Star Varner presented five prints at the “Midwest Matrix Continuum,” conference and exhibition celebrating some of the most influential printmakers since mid-century in the field of fine art printmaking and their influence on programs around the nation. The exhibit was held at the Grunwald Gallery in the School of Fine Arts at Indiana University, Bloomington, and was on view August 29 – October 1. 

—November 2014