Paloma Varga Weisz works primarily in sculpture and drawing, developing a practice grounded in traditional craftsmanship and psychological inquiry. Her work is characterized by a sustained engagement with historical techniques and forms, combined with an exploration of ambiguity, transformation, and the human figure. Through materially precise yet conceptually open works, Varga Weisz brings established sculptural languages into dialogue with contemporary concerns.
Born in Mannheim in 1966, Varga Weisz received a classical training in Bavaria, where she studied traditional methods of woodcarving, modeling, and casting. She later attended the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the 1990s. This dual education continues to shape her practice, in which the physical labor of making remains visible and integral. Working predominantly with wood, alongside bronze, plaster, and works on paper, she produces sculptures and drawings marked by intricate surfaces and a pronounced tactile presence.
Varga Weisz’s carvings frequently engage with conventions of sculptural display, subtly questioning established hierarchies and modes of presentation. Her figures—both sculptural and illustrated—often draw on personal references as well as shared cultural imagery. Anthropomorphic bodies, hybrid creatures, and distorted or fragmented forms recur throughout her work, creating a visual language in which familiarity and strangeness coexist. These figures do not narrate specific stories but instead evoke states of uncertainty, introspection, and physical vulnerability.
Rather than aligning with a single historical source, Varga Weisz’s work moves across temporal registers. Elements that recall medieval carving, folk traditions, or early modern sculpture appear alongside gestures that feel distinctly contemporary. This temporal openness allows her work to resist fixed interpretation, positioning it between past and present, figuration and abstraction, intimacy and distance. Drawing plays a central role in her practice, operating both as an autonomous medium and as a space for experimentation that informs her sculptural work.
Varga Weisz has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at institutions including the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2020); Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht (2019); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2015); and Salzburger Kunstverein (2015). Her work is held in significant public and private collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf; Museum Kurhaus Kleve; the Olbricht Collection, Berlin; and the Contemporary Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Varga Weisz lives and works in Düsseldorf.