Abigail Varney

❄️WINTER HOEDOWN IS COMING!❄️ One of our biggest party’s of the year landing Sat July 4! This Winter we’re stepping into the Country Tundra for our 2026 Country Struts Winter Hoedown. Learn the moves with beginner line dancing lessons, live tracks from @mikaa_j_ and a tonne of dancing performances and strutting about! @truluv.club + @djgaydad Gonna be huuugge! Fur collars, fluffy boots, and leg warmers highly encouraged; Country Tundra mood board to come. TIX IN BIO!! 🩵❄️🩵❄️🩵

Final day to see FAMILIAL at @townhallgallery Loved putting this together. Big thank you @dboetkers , @aishah_k , Rachel and all the staff at Hawthorn Galley. Thanks for your support Dad. Congratulations to my fellow exhibiting artists and everyone that’s dropped by. Worked with the legendary @peter_hatzipavlis - for my scanning and print work, always a joy! Install pics from @kenton.davey , thank u Sean! Give your parents a call 💛🩵

Abigail Varney’s ‘WILJUL’ @abivar - constructs a vivid, shifting portrait of her mother, combining her own contemporary images with archival photographs made by her father. Varney’s visual language is deeply shaped by the photographic practice of her father, William Varney. Here his images operate not only as source material, but as an active presence, a visual inheritance that complicates authorship and teases out layers of emotion. Varney’s practice unfolds through layering, return and reconstruction; her images acting, as writer Moyra Davey might suggest, akin to vessels through which meaning accrues slowly. In an intoxicating and vibrant mix of images Varney reassembles the memory of her mother through a process of looking and re-looking, shaped as much by absence as by what remains. It is clear to see in Varney’s work the healing potential of photography, where it can function through the careful handling of inherited images and via the creation of new ones. This is a project replete with attention and care, and with an acknowledgement that grief and love are tied to one another. The fractured and disconnected manner in which Varney’s images occupy the gallery wall talk of memories, moments and feelings constantly resurfacing. Collectively ‘WILJUL’ a portmanteau of her parent’s first names, is both homage and inquiry, a means of sustaining memory, celebrating life, and making sense of loss through the act of looking.

The next artist feature from FAMILIAL is Australian artist Abigail Varney @abivar - Abigail Varney layers archival images, family photographs, and her own photographic work to construct a vivid portrait of her late mother. Working with her own images and those made by her father, she binds together memory and loss and preserves personal history; a history continually being reassembled. This layering reflects the non-linear nature of grief, addressing what is remembered, what is missing, what is re-encounted and how meaning is reconstructed through acts of looking and re-looking. Varney’s work functions as both homage and inquiry, honouring the lives of her parents while reflecting on her distinct relationship to each one. In FAMILIAL Abigail Varney’s work is exhibited alongside Taysir Batniji, EJ Hassan, Nur Aishah Kenton, Mariela Sancari and Annie Wang. This exhibition brings together these six artists whose work navigates the emotional and psychological terrain of family - of parents and children, of unbreakable bonds, tenderness, and the enduring ache of absence. This major CCP exhibition presented in partnership with @townhallgallery and Hawthorn Arts Centre / @cityofboroondara - is a meditation on love and longing and the essential imprints our closest relationships leave behind. Supported by: @spicersaus HcPro Printers @peter_hatzipavlis @colour_factory @hahnemuehle_imaging @hahnemuehle_global Opening event @townhallgallery February 14th 1pm - all welcome, no bookings required.

📷📣 ANNOUNCEMENT! Our new exhibition ‘Familial’ brings together six artists whose work navigates the emotional and psychological terrain of family – of parents and children, of unbreakable bonds, tenderness and the enduring ache of absence. Presented by the Centre for Contemporary Photography in partnership with Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn Arts Centre @cityofboroondara , this exhibition explores the complexity of familial connections through presence and loss, in a meditation on love and longing and the essential imprints our closest relationships leave behind. Accessible and simple in its approach, ‘Familial’ allows us to see sons and daughters photographing parents, and inversely, parents photographing their children, sometimes slowly over decades and sometimes with urgency. To photograph another person is to know them differently, to see them afresh; and to see the images made by a parent or an offspring is to see the world anew, through their eyes. Featuring: Taysir Batniji, EJ Hassan, Nur Aishah Kenton, Mariela Sancari, Abigail Varney and Annie Wang. - Opening event 1pm Saturday February 14th, Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn Town Hall, 360 Burwood Road, Hawthorn, VIC, 3122 - Supported by @spicersaus HcPro Printers @peter_hatzipavlis @colour_factory @hahnemuehle_imaging @hahnemuehle_global Bowness Family Foundation Ramses Foundation Ang Family - Poster design: @clayton_walker - #ccpaustralia #hcpro #photography #spicersaus #exhibition

OCULI EDITIONS PRINT SALE by @abivar Abigail’s image, Sand and Glitter is a part of her most recent project shot in surfer’s paradise in 2025. Link to purchase in bio To mark the 25th anniversary of OCULI, Australia’s longest-running photography collective, we have launched OCULI editions featuring an important selection of images from the archive of OCULI members. Showcasing 11 works from 11 acclaimed members of the collective, the featured photographs span deeply personal series and powerful documentary projects, offering a rich, nuanced visual narrative of life in Australia and beyond. Available in a limited edition of 30, these prints celebrate the collective’s enduring influence on reportage and documentary photography in the region. For over two decades, Oculi has been a cornerstone of visual storytelling — setting the benchmark for editorial and commissioned work.

I was lucky enough to photograph the legendary Helen Garner one morning as the sun came up along the Maribyrnong River. We chatted like old friends, with some pictures In between. Her new book ‘The Season’ is out. She loves footy & her grandson. She also had a keen interest in my 2010 Subaru Impreza. What a gem, go Helen!

Oculi summer print sale now live for one week only! link in bio. Grab a print for $100 The next image is Umoona by @abivar ABOUT THE PRINT SALE Oculi is a not for profit 10% of money raised will be donated to @rsfinternational to support their efforts in defending the right of every human to have access to free and reliable information. All signed archival pigment prints on Hahnemuehle fine art fibre paper thanks to our sponsor @basewhite_printing Abigail Varney - Umoona The rocky waves of Coober Pedy, remnants of this magnetic, surreal landscape shaped by its extremities. Prints also available from @mattabbottphoto @mridulaamin @conorashleigh @jamesbrickwood @jamesabugg @judith_nangala @meghewitt_ @rachel_mounsey_ @davidmauricesmith @tajetteohalloran @jeremypiper @dean_sewell @tamara_voninski

Jo Waite slept here is a project from Jo Waite, a housing affordability advocate and comic artist & illustrator. Jo returns and illustrates all the houses she once lived or squatted in and recalls what life was like inside these dwellings and how much these inner city areas have changed. Photographer Abigail Varney @abivar documents Jo’s journey. - This story is part of The Crumbling Australian Dream, a collaboration between Oculi photographers and ABC News, with support from National Shelter. This series of nine photo essays was made possible with a Meta Australian News Fund grant and the Walkley Foundation. The photo essays will be rolled out on ABC News website weekly, with additional coverage of the issues presented on ABC TV and radio. The Oculi photographers in this project are Abigail Varney, Dean Sewell, (Nur) Aishah Kenton, Rachel Mounsey and Sean Davey. @thewalkleys @abcnews_au @abivar #abcnews #thewalkleyfoundation #housingcrisis

Photographer Abigail Varney @abivar went to Tasmania to document Tasmanian youth. Young people aged 12-24 make up a quater of Tasmania’s growing homeless population. Chloe Hume and Trent Kiely are two of them. - This story is part of The Crumbling Australian Dream, a collaboration between Oculi photographers and ABC News, with support from National Shelter. This series of nine photo essays was made possible with a Meta Australian News Fund grant and the Walkley Foundation. The photo essays will be rolled out on ABC News website weekly, with additional coverage of the issues presented on ABC TV and radio. The Oculi photographers in this project are Abigail Varney, Dean Sewell, (Nur) Aishah Kenton, Rachel Mounsey and Sean Davey. @thewalkleys @abcnews_au @abivar #abcnews #thewalkleyfoundation #housingcrisis

Pets in the Park is a national charity focused on the health of companion animals whose owners are experiencing homelessness. Photographer Abigail Varney @abivar documented the volunteers, animals & owners she encountered in Tasmania, Victoria and the ACT. - This story is part of The Crumbling Australian Dream, a collaboration between Oculi photographers and ABC News, with support from National Shelter. This series of nine photo essays was made possible with a Meta Australian News Fund grant and the Walkley Foundation. The photo essays will be rolled out on ABC News website weekly, with additional coverage of the issues presented on ABC TV and radio. The Oculi photographers in this project are Abigail Varney, Dean Sewell, (Nur) Aishah Kenton, Rachel Mounsey and Sean Davey. @thewalkleys @abcnews_au @abivar #abcnews #thewalkleyfoundation #housingcrisis #petsinthepark

I first read about the Racquets & Red Dust program from an article about the Ash Barty effect - the growing excitement around tennis in remote indigenous communities. With all the help from Beth Caird and the support & encouragement from Dave @racquetmag , I travelled up north to Anindilyakwa Country, Groote Eylandt to join Racquets & Red Dust and saw the joy tennis brought to these kids. This story comes alive in the new issue of @racquetmag . Beautifully teamed with @courtneywalsh2199 words. Big thanks to @bushfitmob , Steve at Umbakumba sports & rec and most importantly Beth Caird & Anzac Leidig for making this such a brilliant, memorable experience. 🧡