"Darger" screening at RAG series

Roxbury — “In the Realms of the Unreal – The Mystery of Henry Darger” will be the second film in the Roxbury Arts Group’s Reel Artist Series on Sunday, March 14 at 1:30 p.m. The screening will be followed by a Q and A discussion with Christina Varga, Ellen Greene Stewart and Juliana Driever, facilitated by Jonathan Starch.
Henry Darger was a reclusive custodian in Chicago until shortly before his death in 1973 at the age of 81. His landlord found in his apartment what would prove to be a trove of some 1,500 drawings and paintings, many done in meticulous detail on both sides of long rolls of paper. This work, done in secret over 40 years, illustrated a fantastic epic whose heroines were the figures of half-naked girls traced from mail-order catalogs.
This award-winning documentary tells the story of Darger’s sad life on the edge of insanity and attempts to show how he produced a remarkable and unsettlingly beautiful body of work, much of it now housed at New York City’s American Folk Art Museum. Directed by Jessica Yu.
Christina Varga is a self-taught artist and the founder of VARGA Gallery and the Visionary Art Collective in Woodstock. Since June 2003 she has been exhibiting, supporting and promoting self-taught, outsider and visionary artists and her own mixed media works have been exhibited nationally and internationally including at the American Visionary Art Museum, the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine and the Kunst10daagse “10 Day Festival of Art” in Holland. She produces an online Arts, Culture & Media Variety Show called “Apocalypse VARGA” for three years and counting and marches to the beat of a very different drummer
Ellen Greene Stewart is a licensed, board certified Mental Health Counselor and Art Therapist who has a private practice.  She is the author of two books, the newer book being Superheroes Masked, co-authored with Steven Hitt, also of Roxbury.  Ellen also runs CROP, the after-school program in Roxbury.  She lives in Roxbury with her husband and daughter.
Juliana Driever is an independent curator and a specialist in the area of contemporary American self-taught art.  Her work with Henry Darger includes published articles and lectures, and she has also served as the Collection Manager for the Henry Darger Room Collection at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art (Chicago).  Jonathan Starch is a lifelong movie buff and has worked in film and television production for 25 years and is currently producing “Lights Out,” a new series that will debut next winter on FX. Jonathan and his partner David France currently own the Galli-Curci Theatre building in Margaretville and have a residence in New Kingston.