Adriana Varejão's work revisits and critiques Brazil's colonial past through paintings and sculptures that reposition its fissures and scars in the present. The artist appropriates both the iconography and architectural elements that correspond to Brazilian Baroque and its developments, with particular attention to Portuguese tiles, which spread in the region during the relevant period.

Bidimensionality and tridimensionality are blended in works that not only reveal intense research into Brazilian history but also explore pictorial traditions from other territories, such as China, for example—evident in works referencing its landscape paintings and ceramic art.

Since the 1990s, her work has reached international institutions, being exhibited in spaces like the Tate Modern in London and MoMA in New York, as well as participating in several São Paulo Biennials. 

Varejão’s works are held in the collections of major institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MoMA), New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Modern, London; Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris; Inhotim Center for Contemporary Art, Brumadinho; São Paulo Museum of Modern Art; and the Museum of Art of Rio.

Her prominence extends beyond exhibitions to awards. The artist received the Chevalier Medal of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government; the Grand Prize of Criticism in the Visual Arts category from the São Paulo Association of Art Critics (APCA); and the Mario Pedrosa Prize (for contemporary language artists) from the Brazilian Association of Art Critics (ABCA).