Remedios Varo was a Surrealist who fled the Nazis and settled in Mexico City; she knew Leonora Carrington and Frida Kahlo. Her visionary paintings look medieval but reflect both modern science (especially astronomy and astrophysics) and esoteric lore (she studied alchemy). If Carl Jung had become a painter...

Decades ago I stumbled on Whitney Chadwick's book on women Surrealists, showing Varo, Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, and others. I recognized their dreamworld as like my own, while their male counterparts were visually startling but... just not me.

Many of Varo's visionary beings, as in The Creation of the Birds, look like dream figures (more, they look like my dream figures), but Varo left no record of dreams associated with them. Even the lone exception, Presencia Inquietante, was pointed out posthumously as depicting a dream by her friend and promoter Walter Gruen, not by Varo herself. But that one proven link encouraged me to post a few more paintings that feel like dreams, and dreams that may have shaped her art generally.

RELATED TOPICS: Surrealism - Dorothea Tanning - gender - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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	THE CREATION OF THE BIRDS: by Remedios Varo, 1957, a Surrealist icon In her laboratory, a owl-woman draws songbirds, then distils starlight that brings them to life...
	PERSONAJE: by Remedios Varo, 1958, a visionary painting A strange being, part woman, part antelope and part angel, with four bat wings, runs madly through a forest trying to attain flight speed...
	PRESENCIA INQUIETANTE: by Remedios Varo, 1959?, a nightmare drawing A man breaks into Varo's studio. But he turns out to be part of Varo herself, who says "I don't want you to wake up," and stifles her till she faints...
	SCORCHED: by Remedios Varo, 1923?, a sex nightmare leaving physical traces DREAM: a devil crawls in my window and lies on top of me. I fight back but he's hot--in both senses. NEXT DAY: my grandma asks "Remedios, what happened to you? Your hair is scorched... CAUTION: SEXUAL (AND THERMAL) ASSAULT
	TROUBADOR (TROVADOR): by Remedios Varo, 1959, painting of a mythical triangle. A feathered dryad plays panpipes as she eyes a passing troubador, who harmonizes. But the strings he plays are the hair of a living mermaid-boat. Will he leave her?

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