To create one of her cracked tile Azulejão paintings, the Brazilian artist Adriana Varejão applies a thick layer of plaster to a canvas, and then waits in deep suspense for the surface to dry and rupture. In that period, she has said, it is as if an invisible artist takes over. “Obviously I enjoy the tension between control and loss of control,” says Varejão. “Watching the Azulejão develop is more contemplative than anxiety-producing.”
Varejão’s artworks, including her monochrome “big tile paintings,” will be exhibited in Los Angeles for the first time, in a show at the Gagosian gallery. Opening September 14, it features 20 artworks spanning 20 years. The exhibition, titled “Interiors,” showcases Varejão’s exuberant, sensual work to which the artist attributes a social dimension. “There are many more ideas and discourses in art than the central narratives have allowed,” she says. “If viewers have new revelations that culture is always larger than we think it is then my work is done.”
