Utopia / Dystopia: Bruja with a Brush

For this spring's first installment of Utopia / Dystopia, an ongoing series co-presented with Morbid Anatomy, we explore the work of Remedios Varo.

Throughout the mid-20th century, surrealist artist Remedios Varo created paintings and other artworks that were steeped in magic. As a Spanish refugee living in Mexico City, she crafted her own visual world that blended together imagery from witchcraft, Western esotericism, alchemy, biology, and mythology. Many of her depictions were drawn from her own experiments with the occult, which she engaged in alongside her dear friend – and a tremendous artist in her own right – Leonora Carrington. As Varo developed her own painted corpus of mystical inquiry, she blurred the line between artist and witch. Please join Pam Grossman for a special, image-rich presentation celebrating the enchanting art of this singular painter.

Pam Grossman is the creator and host of The Witch Wave podcast and the author of _Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power (_Gallery Books, June 2019) and What Is A Witch (Tin Can Forest Press). She is co-founder of the Occult Humanities Conference at NYU, and her art exhibitions and magical projects have been featured in The New York Times, Artforum, and The New Yorker. Her writing has appeared in such outlets as Sabat Magazine, HuffPost, and her occulture blog, Phantasmaphile. You can find her at PamGrossman.com and @Phantasmaphile.