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Water: Ebbs & Flows
Date
2025 - Exhibition at Caelene Nee Glen Gallery, Brighton (Melbourne)
Material
Ceramic and Gold Leaf
Poem: "Water" By Gabriela Mistral
There are countries I remember
as I remember my childhood.
They are countries of sea or river,
of pastures, meadows, and waters.
My village on the Rhône,
surrendered to the river and the cicadas;
Antilles with green-black palms,
set in the middle of the sea, calling me;
Ligurian rock of Portofino,
Italian sea, Italian sea!
They have brought me to a land without rivers,
Hagar’s lands, lands without water;
White Sara and red Sara,
where other races have sinned,
with the crimson sin of the Atrides,
etched into scarred clays;
lands not born like a child
with soft, fleshy skin,
lands I hear without a whisper,
lands I cross without a glance.
I long to return to childlike lands;
take me to a gentle land of waters.
Let me grow old among vast pastures,
telling fable after fable to the river.
Let a fountain be my mother,
and in the midday heat, let me seek it,
descending with jugs from a rock,
carrying sweet, sharp, and bitter water.
Let the fierce, icy water
overcome me and steal my breath.
Let it shatter my glass, and as I drink,
turn my insides into childhood once again!
— Gabriela Mistral (Chilean Poet, 1889–1957)
First Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1945
EXHIBITION STATEMENT
Ebb & Flow: Water and the Moon
by Andrea Vargas
Location: Caelene Nee Glen Gallery https://www.caeleneneeglen.com.au/
"Take me to a gentle land of waters... Let a fountain be my mother..."
— Gabriela Mistral, Agua (Water)
Ebb & Flow: Water and the Moon is a personal and poetic reflection on life’s emotional tides—its fragility, strength, and healing. Influenced by Gabriela Mistral’s poem "Water", the exhibition explores memory, migration, and resilience through the language of ceramic, the rhythm of the sea, and the quiet pull of the moon.
Andrea Vargas is a multidisciplinary artist with Latin American roots, born in Chile and now based in Melbourne. Her practice is grounded in sculpture, drawing, photography, and ceramic work. She draws inspiration from the four elements—Earth, Water, Fire, and Air—along with a deep connection to nature and a love for impressionist and expressionist movements.
In this exhibition, water becomes more than a theme—it is a metaphor for survival and return. The works carry personal weight: a testimony to Andrea’s lived experiences, including the trauma of childhood sexual abuse and the loss of an Australian partner to suicide. These events left lasting emotional fractures, which she began to process and transform through her art.
The sculptural waves and forms reflect the ebb and flow of the human condition—how we rise, fall, heal, and begin again. Some pieces are soft and contemplative; others carry the tension of turbulence. They speak not only to the sea’s physical presence, but to the inner worlds we all carry—stories of grief, joy, and transformation.
Central to the exhibition is Andrea’s use of *Kintsugi*, the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with gold. Several of her hand-built ceramic works have been intentionally broken and then restored, with cracks filled in gold leaf. This method symbolises resilience—how even after being broken, something can be made more beautiful through healing. Each golden seam is a scar made sacred, a visible reminder that strength often comes from our most vulnerable places.
Gabriela Mistral’s poetry offered Andrea a deep emotional connection, especially in the lines that long for a return to "lands of water." Her words resonated with Andrea’s journey—leaving Chile, adapting to new geographies, and seeking a return to a self rooted in memory and nature.
The moon, present as a symbol throughout the work, evokes intuition, feminine power, and the quiet force that governs our inner and outer worlds.
"Ebb & Flow: Water and the Moon" is not only an exhibition—it is an act of healing. Through each piece, viewers are invited to reflect on their own journeys, and to see that from brokenness, beauty can emerge. We all carry cracks, and we all have the power to heal—slowly, tenderly, and in our own time.
