Becky's Eye
Willie Varela, 4mins, 1977
"A study of sunlight refracted through drinking glasses."
"In his early abstract films, such as Becky's Eye, transforming coloured light suggests, at times, a gradient iris, or an inflamed sclera, and even when these rhythms of are slowed, the film remains ambiguous in its content. Becky's Eye is also unique for its ambiguity, where the light abstraction remains indicative of a concrete thing -- an iris, a lash -- just barely escaping perception. Such light plays announced one theme of Varela's filmmaking, the expression of feeling, both spiritual and emotional, and of time, both mythic and present, through a transforming light." Stephen Broomer
Willie Varela
Willie Varela has been making film in the independent, personal tradition since 1971. To date, Mr. Varela has completed 91 films ranging in length from 30 seconds to 104 minutes. In addition, Varela has completed 15 videotapes since 1991. Varela's image making practice also encompasses photography and visual/text pieces incorporating found imagery, photos, text, and graphics.
Mr. Varela's public exhibition career has spanned over twenty years, with one-man shows at such independent film showcases as the San Francisco Cinematheque, Los Angeles Film Forum, Chicago Filmmakers, Millennium Film Workshop, Rice University, Berks Filmmakers, the Boston Film/Video Foundation, Anthology Film Archives, Collective for Living Cinema, Pacific Film Archives, Austin Film Society, Guadalupe Central Arts Center, San Antonio, Donnell Media Center, and many others. Highlights of Varela's career include a Cineprobe at the Museum of Modern Art in 1988; videos in the 1993 and 1995 Whitney Biennials; and inclusion of 12 Super 8 films in the Big As Life: An American History of the 8mm Films, the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Varela was also the subject of a mid-career retrospective of his completed work in film and video at the Whitney Museum of American Art in the spring of 1994. This exhibition was organized by Chon Noriega. Mr. Varela's films and videotapes have also been shown on broadcast television outlets, including KQED in San Francisco, KUHT in Houston, KDET in Corpus Christi, and KWHY in Los Angeles. Varela's photographs and visual/text pieces have also been included in group shows at the Bridge Center for Contemporary Art in El Paso, Texas; the El Paso Museum of Art; the San Antonio Museum of Art; and the Jansen-Perez Gallery in San Antonio, Texas.
