Varda Caivano Argentine/Italian, b. 1971
To experience Varda Caivano’s work is an event. Without hyperbole, Barry Schwabsky in ArtForum described her as “one of the best painters of any age, anywhere today.’ (2011) .
Varda Caivano’s work is a timeless reflexion on the status of painting in contemporary art. Varda’s captivating paintings are removed of any artifice and made of pure essence in her use of colours, shape, texture, and format. Her gestures of making are akin, in her own words, to: “cleaning checking trying out changing fitting signing waiting imagining inventing investing deciding bending folding stooping sheathing fitting out stripping bare splitting turning returning […]”. To experience Varda Caivano’s work is an event. Without hyperbole, Barry Schwabsky in ArtForum described her as “one of the best painters of any age, anywhere today.’ (2011) .
Her recent solo exhibitions include Moonlight Paintings, Mendes Wood DM, Brussels (2022); En México, Lulu by X Museum, Mexico City (2022); Varda Caivano, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2021); Varda Caivano, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo (2019); The DENSITY of the ACTIONS, The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2015); Voice, Victoria Miro, London (2011); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2007); and Varda Caivano: Malerei, Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg (2006). A solo exhibition will take place at Hastings Contemporary, Hastings, in 2023.
Her recent group exhibitions include All season sanctuary, Mendes Wood DM at d'Ouwe Kerk, Retranchement (2022); The Kingfisher’s Wing, GRIMM, New York (2022); Natural Function, Spiral Garden, Tokyo (2022); No horizon, no edge to liquid, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2020); Slow Painting, Hayward Gallery Touring, Leeds Museum and Art Gallery, Leeds; The Levinsky Gallery, The Arts Institute - University of Plymouth, Plymouth; The Edge, University of Bath and Bath Spa School of Art and Design, Bath; Inverness Museum & Art Gallery and Thurso Art Gallery, Inverness (2019 – 2020); Collection 2: The 1980s Zeitgeist as a Point of Departure, The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2018); Somewhat Abstract, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham (2014); Encyclopedic Palace, 55th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, Venice (2013); and British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet, Nottingham; Hayward Gallery, London; Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow; Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth (2010).
