Celacanto Provoca Maremoto

In her body of works, Adriana Varejão delivers articulations of painting, sculpture, and architecture, while revisiting historical and cultural elements and references. In Celacanto provoca maremoto [Coelacanth provokes seaquakes, 2004-2008], a site-specific piece developed from an original mural installed in a single wall, the artist deals with Baroque and Portuguese tile art as main historical references, in addition to the colonial history that links Portugal and Brazil: after all, here we are in maritime domains, along the same ocean that once provided the major connection between the Old World and the New World in the age of the great navigations and voyages. Arranged in grid format on panels, the large tiles allude to the haphazard and casual manner in which broken tiles were replaced in baroque murals. Thus, seaquake and the angelical features depicted in Varejão’s paintings make up this exacting architecture of chaos, with color and compositional modulations that connote the cadence of rhythm and melody.