Rita Vargas: HOLDING GROUND

The Holding Ground exhibition brings together works spanning graphics, photography, and installations. The exhibition is part of Vargas' ongoing research into living environments, territories, and species - both real and imagined. Through her works, she reflects on belonging, identity, observation, and the fragile relationships that connect living beings to their habitats.

The exhibition presents unfamiliar species, objects of reverence, and imaginary souls inhabiting familiar forms. Through textures related to the human body and the sensation of being observed, Vargas explores the experience of being watched and uses reverence as a metaphorical connection to the unknown. She works with materials, images, and installations, constructing landscapes where geographical origins blur and associations become fluid. In response to the growing polarization of contemporary societies, she seeks to reunite worlds of existence that are often experienced as separate.

Rita Vargas is a visual artist working in sculpture, installation, graphic art, and photography. Her art addresses migration and diasporic identity through material metaphors and layered imagery. Drawing from classical iconography, she combines woodcuts, photographic fragments, ceramics, and cork to build symbolic spaces where personal and collective histories meet. Originating from Portugal, shaped by Japanese influences, and inspired by years spent in Finland, Vargas employs theatricality and fragmentation as forms of resilience and transformation.