Varnish Online
A collection of written art, assembled piece by piece. This curated gallery holds a mix of mature and emerging talent, where the breadth of voices creates a harmonious exhibition.
Patrons are invited to engage not with a single work but the complete collection – one that exposes varying techniques, styles, and accounts.
43. Relationship Contract
Once upon a time there was a man called John and a woman called Jane, or a woman called Jane and a man called John…
42. Robert & Christina
It’s one of those happy hours that bleeds into a dinner and then a night out. Time is slippery, imperceptible, and suddenly it’s eleven o’clock…
37. Two Small Lives by the Window
She dreams of the apartment in New York more often now that she’s in Melbourne…
33. Touching Distance
When they were younger, they used to stay at his family’s bach in Kaupokonui…
31. Seminyak
My iPhone had taken to reminding me of the last trip I took with my father and the week we spent in Bali…
29. Wrong Forecast
When I went to work that day, in the tavern next to the building, I heard several entities soaked in homemade liquor, which was doing well, unlike other branches of the economy; they were bitterly discussing current political events…
28. Trampolines and Boys with Broken Bones
When I was little – so little, in fact, that I couldn’t distinguish my parents’ angry voices from their excited ones – I used to watch the boy who lived in the house beside us bounce on his trampoline every afternoon…
25. The Suicide
When Mira found out Liam had killed himself, she’d been crossing a Cambodian road to get to a temple…
23. Bitter Fruit
He charges into the water with bull-like force, his heavy thighs parting the waves, silver-haired chest open in defiance…
18. Paper Nails
In Budapest during my gap year I got a tattoo for you between my shoulder blades…
