Varda Caivano is a London-based artist recognised for her abstract compositions on canvas that explore the properties of light and paint as a medium.
Read MoreCaivano received a BA from the University of Buenos Aires (1998); a Postgraduate Diploma from Goldsmiths College, London (2001); and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London (2004).
Working on several canvases simultaneously, Varda Caivano builds layers of paint that she then scratches, rubs, and reworks. Although abstract and untitled, many of Caivano's paintings have been described as evoking nature.
The colour palettes of Caivano's work vary, though they are often monochromatic or complementary within each canvas. Greens dominate an untitled painting from 2010, as do blues with small areas of yellow in a canvas from 2013. Expanses of blue cover an oil-and-charcoal work from 2016, over which Caivano has made black stripes that allow other colours—grey, purple, muted green, and orange—to peek through.
Usually modest in scale, Caivano's paintings prompt a close and prolonged study of colour relationships, brush strokes and marks, recalling familiar shapes in their abstract compositions. Common evocations include nature: in Untitled (2004), the diagonal strokes of yellow and brown could be said to create an architectural shape, with the triangle of blue and purple in the background describing the sky.
Caivano herself has often said that she regards her paintings as 'thoughts'—as things that are abstract and constantly in flux, becoming or returning to something else, moving in non-linear paths. Allowing the spectator to mediate their own relationships with the work, Caivano's paintings generate subjective experiences and chains of associations.
Varda Caivano has exhibited her work internationally.
Select solo exhibitions include Varda Caivano, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2021); Varda Caivano, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo (2019); Varda Caivano, Victoria Miro, London (2015); The DENSITY of the ACTIONS, The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago (2015); In the Studio, Tomio Koyama Gallery (2013).
Select group exhibitions include No horizon, no edge to liquid, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2020); Slow Painting, Hayward Gallery, London (2019); Surface Work, Victoria Miro, London (2018); A Way of Living, A Palazzo Gallery, Brescia, Italy (2016); 55th Venice Biennale (2013); Varda Caivano & Yael Davids, CIRCUS, Berlin (2012).
Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2022
