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SCULPTING DISTANCE

Varvàra Fern and Travel as the Destination

by M. R. WOOD

“Now I stare at telephone poles…If I saw a fragment of that somewhere in the gallery, I would be pretty sure it's just an art piece. It's just beautiful in its sculptural shape.”

“I heard from other people that works from my Travel Series can also be dark because it made people think of The Road,” Varvàra Fern says—referring to the post-apocalyptic book by Cormac McCarthy.

Fern’s work has long been inspired by the concept of travel. Such works include her evocative piece Railcars, recently featured in DVAA’s exhibition, Dispatches from Kindred Worlds, as well as her solo exhibition at Crane Arts, entitled On a journey.

It’s fitting, then, that Varvàra Fern’s trajectory as an artist has been a remarkable journey in itself. Beginning with her early childhood interest in sculpture and continuing through her studies in both Moscow and Philadelphia, Fern’s artistic practice has quickly garnered significant acclaim. In 2023-2024 alone, her work was featured in 41 exhibitions, underscoring the widespread recognition she has achieved. Over the past 2 years, she received 13 prestigious awards and honors, a testament to the profound impact of her artworks. Her reputation continues to grow, as her meticulously crafted works from the Travel Series have earned admiration within the professional art community. Beyond her gallery presence, her whimsical yet highly detailed sculptures of rats and guinea pigs have captured the attention of thousands on social media, expanding her reach even further. This surge in visibility not only speaks to the artistic merit of her work but also highlights her unique ability to connect with a broad and diverse audience, solidifying her status as one of the most exciting and influential emerging sculptors in contemporary art.

At this point on her journey, with an audience of almost 60,000, what does Fern want to create next?

“I just really like the aesthetic… it's very emotional, a lot of despair, and was also very punk.”

The answer is a return to travel, though this time on a more metaphorical scale—a move prompted in part by an invitation to participate in a fairy-tale-themed show. “Little Red Riding Hood was the first thing that came to mind, and I started thinking about what I can do with that; what I can make about it. And I guess it was also sort of a transition piece between my travel series and fairy tales because… it's still the road, and it's still sort of a journey.”

“I started reading a book by Vladimir Propp, the Russian writer who was doing research on origins of fairy tales—why some repetitive elements come up in different fairy tales, even when they're from different countries.”

According to Propp, each fairytale adheres to 31 story elements, also known as “functions.” In every fairytale, he argues, there is a moment when the hero leaves home. This step is followed immediately by a series of challenges. The journey, in Propp’s version of the fairytale, is all the tests the hero must pass alone—before they receive any help; before they can reach their goal.

Is it possible that that is why an image of travel, without the promise of a destination at the end of the road, reminds some viewers of a post-apocalyptic world? Because they’re accustomed to the road being a space of trials and tribulations, rather than its own moving destination?

“The first inspiration was my journey to the U.S., for the first time as a tourist… I was 13-ish. And it was the first time I came here with my family, and we just traveled around the U.S. for three weeks.” That trip inspired the creation of Hitchhiking, a sculpture that marked the beginning of the recurring theme of journeys, a motif that would come to define much of Fern’s work in the years that followed. As for what fostered the theme’s growth, Varvára points to her enrollment at a fine arts high school, as well as a few more trips to the U.S. The final nudge, she says, was stumbling upon the work of Mike Brodie while surfing the Internet.

Also known as the Polaroid Kid, Mike Brodie is a photographer, and among the most well-known people in the train hopper community. “He has been doing train-hopping, and he's been taking pictures of his travel-mates, his journeys. I just really like the aesthetic of that because it looks like it's very emotional, a lot of despair, and was also very punk… It was something so unusual to me, and something that I hadn't seen before anywhere else—and something that aligned with my experience from my traveling days.”

There, too, is travel for travel’s sake. Varvàra’s sculptures from the Travel Series, like Brodie’s photographs, eschew our goal-fixated culture to find meaning in the space between, before and beyond destinations. The fact that Varvàra is able to capture this concept in the context of a single sculpture is no small feat of perspective. After all, what would you imagine if you were told an artist specialized in sculpting distance?

This speaks to Varvàra’s talent with perspective—on display in her motif of roads that seem to disappear into the distance—but it also speaks to her talent for observation; for noticing the beauty in the world around her. “It just started seeming beautiful as, like, shapes, and after that I added some more elements, like highways or telephone poles,” Varvàra says of her evolving travel work. In this way, Varvàra’s work, like Mike Brodie’s, seems to say that the travel itself is made up of destinations—of beautiful sights and shapes that so often go unnoticed. Given its deserved attention, nothing is in-between.

“Now I stare at telephone poles,” Varvàra says. “I’m like, if I saw a fragment of that somewhere in the gallery, I would be pretty sure it's just like an art piece. It's just beautiful in its sculptural shape... I want to show it to other people.”

Varvàra Fern studied at the Moscow Academic Art Institute, named after V. I. Surikov, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), where she received her BFA and MFA. Fern is an elected member at the National Sculpture Society. She has had her works exhibited in numerous prestigious galleries and exhibitions throughout the USA, including at National Sculpture Society, Arch Enemy Arts, and Gross McCleaf Gallery.

Varvàra Fern is an artist and a sculptor. Born in 1999, she grew up in Moscow, Russia and has been sculpting since her early childhood. She entered Moscow Academic Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov where she studied classic and figurative art. Varvàra transferred to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) where she earned a Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts and sculpture. Currently living and making art in Philadelphia, she is continuing her education through PAFA’s Master of Fine Arts program.

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Miden Wood is a writer and visual artist with a background in children’s television and sketch comedy. In her professional practice, Miden is invigorated by finding and elevating the why at the heart of our shared experiences—be that a gallery exhibition, a live show or a community conversation. She is grateful for the opportunity to work with and for the purpose-driven artists at DVAA, and, through that work, to serve the larger community.