Adriana Varejao

Adriana Varejao is one of the most prominent artists living and working in Brazil today, whose rich and diverse artistic oeuvre is fuelled by the mythic pluralism of Brazilian identity and its histories. Drawing upon the aesthetic traditions and visual legacy of colonialism and transcultural exchange, she has reconceived and extended the concept and practice of painting by fusing mediums, surfaces, and artistic lineages in totally unprecedented ways. In so doing, she disrupts entrenched narratives by bringing forth obscured stories and uncomfortable truths from the margins. In recent times, Varejao has shifted her gaze from her native Brazil and its diverse roots in Europe, Africa, and Asia to Mexico, expanding the cross-fertilisation of distinct threads of Latin American art and culture in her own work.

In Varejao’s first English-language monograph, her diverse and expansive body of work is explored in depth, from her earliest paintings in the 1990s to her most recent multimedia installations. The volume includes an introduction by editor Louise Neri; essays by curator Paulo Herkenhoff, critic and curator Luisa Duarte (with comments by Varejao), and art historian Angela H. Brown; and an interview with the artist by Jochen Volz.