Archivi tag: artist

THE HOUSE OF VARGAS – Part 2

Chanoa Tarle, a repeat Deshabille contributor, was lucky enough to discover the artwork of George Vargas. Once he began to produce fashion featuring his designs, she jumped at the chance to interview him. Of course we said yes…

 

Following his first ayahuasca experience, many of his works went on to feature even more esoteric themes linked to spirituality, meditation and creative, cosmic expansion. Post-ayahuasca, Vargas knew exactly what he wanted to express. He describes his work as a “complete engagement with beauty”. He follows his yen for beauty and the more he focuses on this beauty, the more it grows and the more it appears throughout his existence. A fitting destiny for the Australian artist with parents hailing from Peru!

 

It’s a fun journey, linked a lot to my meditation and spirituality. It’s good to unplug from the art and the world. The idea of feeling you’ve got everything and don’t need anything. That’s what I want to express in the next series of artwork. I went through an exploration of desire and the mystery of women and every girl is completely different- and obviously every human being. It’s a fascinating journey. I see a lot of femininity in nature. Masculinity is interesting too because I’m reacting to that…” – George Vargas

 

 

Fast forward to 2018 and his distinctive designs are the focal point of a new luxury fashion brand, The House of Vargas. High quality tees feature his artwork in an array of colors. Incredible scarves and sarongs in silk and chiffon highlight the beauty of the women who wear them – never overpowering them – while serving as wearable art. There is something about the way he produces the art and produces the collections. There’s an energy to every piece that is nearly palpable. George attributes it to beauty, a common theme in  his works: “I suppose it’s this overpowering beauty I’m feeling for the subject and it’s captured in the vibration and the line and the colors. It’s a bit overpowering like a drug. Intoxicating.”

 

“Luxury is all about self-expression to me because you’ve got clothing that all looks the same out there. Luxury to me is having something unique to wear. The scarves will always be limited edition. [I’m offering] jackets of only five pieces in the world.” Since there will never be another you, he loves the idea of offering something truly unique.

Since there will never be another you, he loves the idea of offering something truly unique. Art-adorned leather motorcycle jackets are coming soon, the product of a new partnership with a leather specialist- as well as leather bomber jackets for men and women. The first, set to debut this month, is the Aki Jacket.

 

 

His fashion brand has so far developed in a very organic way. And we can expect to see a lot more from The House of Vargas in the future. The custom stories he crafts for each design will evolve into future fashion films. More product categories will be introduced. We’ll see artful exhibitions. He’s even ready to transform the likes of nightclubs, restaurants and yoga centers; his designs are available for custom commercial interior design.

TheHouseofVargas.com

Instagram: @galacticemperor12

Editor’s Note: When the author interviewed the artist for Deshabille Magazine, the video call wouldn’t register her face. After their conversation, Vargas looked her up on Instagram and saw her as a striking character for his pieces. She is now one of his muses, featured regularly in his works.

 

Chanoa Tarle About Chanoa Tarle 

Chanoa Tarle is a freelance copywriter, journalist and editor specializing in fashion and luxury goods/lifestyle.

Her work has appeared in magazines including ELEVATE and Luxury Hoteliers and she’s written for an inspiring list of companies including Scaling Retail and Neiman Marcus.

www.ChanoaTarle.com

Get in touch – Email chanoa@chanoatarle.com

 

 

THE HOUSE OF VARGAS – Part 1

Chanoa Tarle, a repeat Deshabille contributor, was lucky enough to discover the artwork of George Vargas. Once he began to produce fashion featuring his designs, she jumped at the chance to interview him. Of course we said yes…

 

George Vargas, multi-disciplinary artist, creative director, and now- emerging fashion designer – is not a person one easily forgets. He lights up with animation at the mention of his projects, quickly shifting from insights on spirituality, meditation and pop culture, to the benefits of this fabric over that one and societal predictions for the future.

It would be a disservice to reduce his nature to words. For a proper introduction, I’ll let his artwork and fashion do the talking.

The Sydney-based artist got his start as a musician. Then his love for music segued into another passion- the visual arts. Vargas says “the drawing got carried away” and today much of his images come from what he perceives when he listens to music. His first forays into art began with posters for songs, eventually leading up to fine art projects over the last 12 years.

Hosting huge Facebook castings to find people he was visually drawn to, exposed him to a world of possibilities. He would create a piece, the subject would connect him to more people, and so the chain of connections would continue. Then the Banksy documentary, “Exit Through the Gift Shop”, confirmed this newfound power of art. The film made him realize if the film’s protagonist, Thierry Guetta, could sell his art- then he too could be like a rockstar.

And so his fate was sealed. George Vargas, relative of 1950’s pin-up artist to the stars, Alberto Vargas, pushed forward with his art career. George became very drawn to the goddess theme and Pagan elements, leaning towards fun cartoon characters with “abstract doodling everywhere”.

“There’s information in every single line and people just feel it. It’s like creating a new language.” – George Vargas

The obscure works may feature Egyptian pharaohs, pop culture figures (from David Lynch and Andy Warhol to Cookie Monster and Jim Morrison) or any one of his favorite goddess muses like Australian model Alex Patterson and Mara from NYC who feature in many of his pieces. “It goes back to an adoring aspect – women are always powerful,” says Vargas.

Look out for Part 2 of this feature to learn how spirituality would impact George Vargas’ work, and the launching of his luxury fashion brand, The House of Vargas.

TheHouseofVargas.com

Instagram: @galacticemperor12

Editor’s Note: When the author interviewed the artist for Deshabille Magazine, the video call wouldn’t register her face. After their conversation, Vargas looked her up on Instagram and saw her as a striking character for his pieces. She is now one of his muses, featured regularly in his works.

 

Chanoa Tarle About Chanoa Tarle 

Chanoa Tarle is a freelance copywriter, journalist and editor specializing in fashion and luxury goods/lifestyle.

Her work has appeared in magazines including ELEVATE and Luxury Hoteliers and she’s written for an inspiring list of companies including Scaling Retail and Neiman Marcus.

www.ChanoaTarle.com

Get in touch – Email chanoa@chanoatarle.com

 

The day I told myself: “I am an artist”.

 

 

                                                                                      I never thought of myself as an artist.

                                                                                      I never believed in the concept of “talent”.

                                                                                      I never thought that photography was an art.

.

What I truly believed in, however, was hard and tough work. My life as a photographer can easily be divided into two phases: The one where I believed photography was a technical profession with no room for art, and the phase where I came to the realisation that photography is indeed art. So let me tell you first how I got there.

“To convey your soul into your work. Art is about an emotion, an idea, a message.”

At the University the way I studied photography was very technical. We didn’t talk too much about abstract art or what a particular photographer wanted to say through his pictures. Instead we discussed lights, lenses, composition, physics, chemistry and much more science. After all these years at Uni I realised that I was learning almost anything by just analyzing other photographers’ works. By observing closely any portrait work , I could tell precisely how many lights a photographer used, what kind of soft-boxes were chosen and, after a few years of practice, I could even tell how he implemented his post-processing.

“The key is to integrate our art into our life, not the other way around.”
― Brooks Jensen, Letting Go of the Camera: Essays on Photography and the Creative Life

And that’s when I started to work. At the beginning of my career I was doing a lot of photoshoots to whoever agreed posing for me – my friends, my colleagues, my classmates. Then, one by one these pictures reached social media. People started asking who was behind those shots and so I pushed myself into the position of no-stop-working forgetting about weekends, 8 to 14 hours a day. Too much? Right. But at that time, I believed that I needed to practice and practice, in order to shape myself into the professional I wanted to be. The funniest thing is – I didn’t know yet who I wanted to become. I believe I pushed myself into that corner by focusing on portrait photo-sessions and wedding photography. My work was totally commercial and technical with no space for artistic expression, also so oriented on the satisfaction of the client that I stopped enjoying the profession just after 4 years of being a freelancer.

And then I moved to London.

“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.”
― Robert Frank

It is really hard to believe, but I couldn’t touch my camera for another 2 years. I have had a huge passion for photography my whole life, but then I was not able to touch the camera anymore. Working in the apparel industry shop for 2 years led me to a huge depression because I abandoned what I love doing.  That’s when I started to reflect on my life, finally. But now, looking back I’m really thankful for that provisional break-up with photography.

It made me realise something very important:

We all are artists.

This is the truth.

Every single person sees this life very differently. And that’s the most amazing thing. You don’t need to wait for inspiration to create the greatest work of art of your life. You don’t need to be special. You are special! All you need is to look inside of you, listen to yourself and express it in the way you can. Some people create music, some paint and some take pictures. In the past, I was looking at other peoples great works and couldn’t understand how they managed to create it. Sometimes I listened to my friends tips or I looked for the idea somewhere else, both the wrong sources, this is why I couldn’t find what I was pursuing for so many years. But, when I focused in the inside, when I listened to myself that’s when all of the creativity and ideas started blooming.

“All my images are self-portraits, even when I’m not in them.”
― Nuno Roque

Currently I’m working on a portrait project which I’ll call Nature Portraits. My idea is showing the beauty of nature and human being. The combination of both to show natural interaction of human and nature. I virtually set these beautiful faces into different kind of natural environment – bushes, flowers and leafs. I collaborate with Make Up artists to create a reflection of nature on the models’ faces. And then I’ll capture this artistic combination. You will judge yourselves how poetic and delicate the outcome is. I have another great upcoming project in mind guided by a very strong message. What I will promise to you from now on is to tell you different lessons which I have learnt in my career, followed by some valuable advices on how to avoid the same mistakes I did.

Today’s pearl of wisdom: “Listen to no one, but yourself. All greatest things are inside you”

“Photography is my other kind of music.”
― Romi Florea

Alina Agarkova Photographer

Alina Agarkova

www.alinaagarkova.com