Adriana Varejão talks to The New York Times about her first solo museum exhibition in New York

'The curved fiberglass and resin plates she has on display at the Hispanic Society Museum and Library in Upper Manhattan — all but one nearly six feet in diameter —are encrusted with sculpted imagery and painted in surreally lifelike colors to convey flora and fauna, cosmologies and legends of the Amazon region. They reveal an artist whose work has assiduously engaged with many different chapters of Brazil’s history.

 

“Each plate is like a universe,” Varejão said cupping her hands in a gesture of gentle explanation. “I like how they relate to my passion for ceramics, for the decorative arts and their history, and how craft can disrupt artistic hierarchies.”'