Adriana Varejão: Saunas

In the Sauna paintings, Varejão explores questions inherent to painting and geometry, with a sensitive use of light and shade to represent simple, contemporary tiled interiors that the artist describes as "psychological ambience". Fine colour gradations enliven the apparent chromatic uniformity of these paintings whilst the grids that constitute these works recall their use in modernist aesthetics. Two paintings from this exhibition The Seducer, 2004 and The Diva, 2004 will be included in Varejão's solo exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in February 2005.

Varejão's earlier work dealt with representation, parody and the Baroque idea of illusion and of theatre. Works from her Jerked Beef Ruin series, for instance, are like contemporary ruins, paintings that depict fragments of wall and rubble made of flesh and tiles. In these recent works the tiles have become simple, unadorned, abstract and minimalist. Starting from compositions that are virtually created, Varejão expands her themes in subtle but no less complex directions whilst upholding the visual poetics and conceptual impulses of her earlier works.