Pedro Varela

b. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1981. 

Pedro Varela’s paintings and installations depict dense, graphic urban landscapes in a range of media, including acrylic, ballpoint and felt tip pens, and multicoloured vinyl stickers applied to the walls, floors, and stairs of gallery spaces. Featuring architecture, minarets, small islands, and shrubs, Varela’s urban environments consist of the outlines of historical buildings as well as imaginary ones, and sometimes include monochromatic planes and colourful roads that run along gallery floors, connecting different spaces. He also produces three-dimensional models of fictional cities composed of paper, wood, and acrylic, and blue paintings of imaginary groupings of plants and flowers.

Brazilian artist Pedro Varela approaches painting with a sketchbook sensibility, which is fitting since his last show at this gallery featured images drawn in blue Bic pen. The exhibition’s title alludes to Nuremberg Chronicle, an illustrated tome from 1493 on world history that muddled biblical tales with facts. Varela himself references common stereotypes ascribed to New World “exoticism” and enmeshes them with both accurate and imagined characterisations.

Pedro studied Fine Arts at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro . 

Pedro Varela. Untitled, Paisagens Vazias series (Empty landscapes series), 2010.  Cut paper 35.5 x 50.5 cm. 

*Works can be sold separately or in groups