PAST RESIDENTS
-
Fall 2025 · Seale is a British artist working across painting, drawing, and performance. He approaches themes of transformation, mortality, the unconscious, and mystery with an unabashed playfulness and vitality.
-
Fall 2024 · explores how memory takes physical form, capturing fleeting traces before they disappear. She creates pulp casts of architectural surfaces that reconstruct the history of a space through its absence. These works mirror the decay they document, remaining fragile and impermanent by nature.
-
Fall 2024 · Sookyung Kim explores material, 3D, and media through abstract, fairy tale–like imagery that blends innocence with darker realities. Her layered digital worlds challenge social norms and reveal hidden power structures, evoking utopian-dystopian spaces of escapism and connection.
-
Summer 2024 · Min Woo Nam (b. 1994, South Korea) is a London-based artist exploring consciousness, perception, and selfhood, shaped by his experience with the UN peacekeeping force in South Sudan. Through subtle tonal shifts and precise brushwork, he creates abstract spaces between the known and the unknown.
-
Winter 2024 · Mary Stephenson’s practice explores colour, form, and emotion through dynamic compositions inspired by nature, memory, and human experience. Blending abstraction with subtle realism, her work invites personal interpretation and reflection. During her residency she also collaborated with two artists to create a film.
-
Fall 2023 · Joseph Aina (b. 1996) is a Nigerian-British artist based in London. His practice explores identity and psychology through landscape, using painting and installation to examine memory, space, and perception. Blending abstraction with narrative, his work evokes spiritual and emotional states while challenging traditional ideas of landscape.
-
Spring 2023 · Jessie Makinson is a London-based artist whose drawings and paintings create ecofeminist worlds where human and non-human life constantly renegotiate. Blending references from mythology, folklore, and pop culture, her work features surreal, restless scenes that challenge familiar narratives.
-
Fall 2022 · Victoria Cantons (b. 1969, London) is a multidisciplinary artist exploring identity, gender, and notions of freedom through autobiographical and art historical references. During her residency in Città della Pieve, she drew inspiration from the Italian landscape, poetry, and classical mythology.
-
Fall 2022 · Xu Yang (b. 1996, Shandong) is a London-based multidisciplinary artist whose work explores femininity, identity, and digital perception through political and queer lenses. Drawing on Western art history and online culture, she questions what is real in the digital age. During her residency, she found inspiration in Italian architecture and historical decoration.
-
Fall 2022 · Yaya Yajie Liang (b. 1995, Henan) is a London-based artist exploring bodily transformation and fluid, hybrid identities in the Anthropocene. Drawing on Chinese mythology and contemporary narratives, her work reimagines humanity through a queer lens. During her residency, she found inspiration in Italian cities and the frescoes of San Marco in Florence.
-
Fall 2019 · Ron Aloni (b. 1950) is an Israeli sculptor based in Tel Aviv, known for weaving organic forms from metal mesh, glass, and industrial materials. During his residency, he collaborated with local Umbrian and Tuscan artisans, exploring craft, material, and place.
-
Winter 2018 · Michael Vasquez (b. 1983) is an American artist whose vivid paintings explore the social dynamics of US street gangs, drawing from his upbringing in Miami. During his residency, he created landscapes and portraits inspired by Umbria and engaged with Italy’s art history.
-
Spring 2017 · Angel Otero (b. 1981) is a Brooklyn-based artist known for process-driven paintings rooted in memory and abstraction. As VAR’s first resident, he focused on developing sculptural works for his Bronx Museum show while collaborating with Umbrian artisans, experimenting with metal and terracotta through local workshops.
-
Summer 2017 · Keita Miyazaki (b. 1983) is a Japanese sculptor whose work combines industrial materials with delicate elements like paper and felt, creating striking contrasts in form and texture. Often incorporating sound, his sculptures reflect the rhythms of everyday urban life. During his residency at VAR, he developed new works and collaborated with the Lispi & Co forge.
-
Fall 2017 · Rana Begum (b. 1977) is a London-based artist whose work draws on geometric patterns from Islamic art and urban architecture, blending Minimalism and optical effects across sculpture, painting, and space. During her residency at VAR, she created new works with local ceramic artisans, visited marble studios in Pietrasanta, and explored Florence and the Venice Biennale.
PAST RESIDENTS
-
Fall 2025 · Orlando Seale is a British artist working across painting, drawing, and performance. He approaches themes of transformation, mortality, the unconscious, and mystery with an unabashed playfulness and vitality.
-
Fall 2024 · Wies Roeterdink explores how memory takes physical form, capturing fleeting traces before they disappear. She creates pulp casts of architectural surfaces that reconstruct the history of a space through its absence. These works mirror the decay they document, remaining fragile and impermanent by nature.
-
Fall 2024 · Sookyung Kim explores material, 3D, and media through abstract, fairy tale–like imagery that blends innocence with darker realities. Her layered digital worlds challenge social norms and reveal hidden power structures, evoking utopian-dystopian spaces of escapism and connection.
-
Spring 2023 · Jessie Makinson is a London-based artist whose drawings and paintings create ecofeminist worlds where human and non-human life constantly renegotiate. Blending references from mythology, folklore, and pop culture, her work features surreal, restless scenes that challenge familiar narratives.
-
Summer 2024 · Min Woo Nam (b. 1994, South Korea) is a London-based artist exploring consciousness, perception, and selfhood, shaped by his experience with the UN peacekeeping force in South Sudan. Through subtle tonal shifts and precise brushwork, he creates abstract spaces between the known and the unknown.
-
Winter 2024 · Mary Stephenson’s practice explores colour, form, and emotion through dynamic compositions inspired by nature, memory, and human experience. Blending abstraction with subtle realism, her work invites personal interpretation and reflection. During her residency she also collaborated with two artists to create a film.
-
Fall 2023 · Joseph Aina (b. 1996) is a Nigerian-British artist based in London. His practice explores identity and psychology through landscape, using painting and installation to examine memory, space, and perception. Blending abstraction with narrative, his work evokes spiritual and emotional states while challenging traditional ideas of landscape.
-
Fall 2022 · Yaya Yajie Liang (b. 1995, Henan) is a London-based artist exploring bodily transformation and fluid, hybrid identities in the Anthropocene. Drawing on Chinese mythology and contemporary narratives, her work reimagines humanity through a queer lens. During her residency, she found inspiration in Italian cities and the frescoes of San Marco in Florence.
-
Fall 2022 · Victoria Cantons (b. 1969, London) is a multidisciplinary artist exploring identity, gender, and notions of freedom through autobiographical and art historical references. During her residency in Città della Pieve, she drew inspiration from the Italian landscape, poetry, and classical mythology.
-
Fall 2022 · Xu Yang (b. 1996, Shandong) is a London-based multidisciplinary artist whose work explores femininity, identity, and digital perception through political and queer lenses. Drawing on Western art history and online culture, she questions what is real in the digital age. During her residency, she found inspiration in Italian architecture and historical decoration.
-
Fall 2019 · Ron Aloni (b. 1950) is an Israeli sculptor based in Tel Aviv, known for weaving organic forms from metal mesh, glass, and industrial materials. During his residency, he collaborated with local Umbrian and Tuscan artisans, exploring craft, material, and place.
-
Winter 2018 · Michael Vasquez (b. 1983) is an American artist whose vivid paintings explore the social dynamics of US street gangs, drawing from his upbringing in Miami. During his residency, he created landscapes and portraits inspired by Umbria and engaged with Italy’s art history.
-
Fall 2017 · Rana Begum (b. 1977) is a London-based artist whose work draws on geometric patterns from Islamic art and urban architecture, blending Minimalism and optical effects across sculpture, painting, and space. During her residency at VAR, she created new works with local ceramic artisans, visited marble studios in Pietrasanta, and explored Florence and the Venice Biennale.
-
Summer 2017 · Keita Miyazaki (b. 1983) is a Japanese sculptor whose work combines industrial materials with delicate elements like paper and felt, creating striking contrasts in form and texture. Often incorporating sound, his sculptures reflect the rhythms of everyday urban life. During his residency at VAR, he developed new works and collaborated with the Lispi & Co forge.
-
Spring 2017 · Angel Otero (b. 1981) is a Brooklyn-based artist known for process-driven paintings rooted in memory and abstraction. As VAR’s first resident, he focused on developing sculptural works for his Bronx Museum show while collaborating with Umbrian artisans, experimenting with metal and terracotta through local workshops.
