The cracked tile has been a recurring motif in Varejão’s work since early in her career and in visceral monochromatic works, she draws particularly on the history of Portuguese Azulejo tilework and the legacy of Brazil’s colonial past. From the mid-1990s, the artist explored two juxtaposing motifs within her practice – flesh and tiles (or azulejos). Blurring the boundaries between painting and sculpture, the Jerked-beef ruin series (2000 - 2004) has been likened to contemporary ruins, where the painted surfaces of floor and wall-based sculptural works are violently ruptured to expose a visceral flesh-like interior, providing a stark contrast to the cold tiled surface. Varejão's large monochromatic paintings from the Sauna series represent idealised, contemporary tiled interiors and swimming baths. Upholding the visual poetics and conceptual impulses of her earlier practice, the fine colour gradations of these paintings enliven their otherwise chromatic uniformity whilst the grids that constitute these works recall their use in modernist aesthetics.

Varejão has long been fascinated by themes of miscegenation and skin colour, and the ambivalent notion of interracial identity in Brazil. For Polvo, 2013, Varejão created her own oil paints, named after thirty-three definitions of skin colour taken from a 1976 household survey conducted by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). The artist selected some of the more exotic and poetic terms, including Fogoió (Fox on Fire Red), Branquinha (Snow White), Burro-quando-foge (Faded Fawn) and Morenão (Big Black Dude) and painted a series of self-portraits in an academic style using these paints.

A permanent pavilion devoted to Adriana Varejão’s work opened in 2008 at Instituto Inhotim in Brazil. An element of the installation – a mural of blue-on-white cracked tile paintings featuring baroque motifs suggest aquatic themes – was interpreted for a major commission for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, where a fabric reproduction of the work enveloped the Aquatic Stadium. 

Speaking about her work, the artist says: ‘My fiction does not belong to any time or place, instead it is characterised by themes dealing with rupture and discontinuity. Everything is contaminated. In my work, the formation of Brazilian culture from the colonial period onwards is used as a metaphor for the modern world.’

Born in 1964, Adriana Varejão currently lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 2019, the major exhibition Adriana Varejão: Por uma retórica canibal, curated by Luisa Duarte, opened at the Museum of Modern Art, Salvador, travelling to MAMAM, Recife, Brazil. Previously, a major retrospective of the artist's work, Histórias às margens (Histories at the margins), was displayed at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo (2012), travelling subsequently to Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro (2013), and MALBA - Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2013). She has held solo exhibitions at The French Academy in Rome - Villa Medici (2017); Dallas Contemporary, Texas (2015); The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, USA (2014 - 2015); Hara Museum, Tokyo (2007); Fondation Cartier Pour L'Art Contemporain, Paris (2005); Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon (2005); Domus Artium (DA2), Salamanca (2005); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro (2001); and Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden (2000). The artist's work has been widely exhibited within large-scale group exhibitions in institutions including Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2019-2020); Met Breuer, New York, USA (2019); MAM Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2019); São Paulo Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo, Brazil (2019); Museu de arte do Rio (MAR), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2018); Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona (2017); MAC Niterói, Rio de Janeiro (2017, 2016); Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (2016); Fondation Cartier Pour l'Art Contemporain, Paris (2016, 2015); Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo (2016); Kunsthal KAdE in Amersfoort, Netherlands (2016); Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro (2016, 2015, 2014); Coimbra Biennial, Portugal (2015); Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, Stockholm (2014); Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio (2014); Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba (2014); Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo (2013); Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon (2013); Fundação Bienal de São Paulo (2013); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro (2012); 12th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2011); Instituto Valencianp de Arte Moderno, Valencia (2011); Fundação de Arte Moderna e Contemporânea, Lisboa (2010); 4th Bucharest Biennale, Bucherest (2008); BildMuseet, Umeå, Sweden (2008); Nassau County Museum of Art, New York (2007); the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York (2007); and MoMA The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA (2002). A permanent pavilion devoted to Adriana Varejaõ's work opened in 2008 at Instituto Inhotim in Brazil.

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