New contemporary abstract art

New contemporary abstract art

Varda Caivano

A 2004 graduate from London's Royal College of Art, this Brazilian-born painter creates sensuous works in which paint itself is of primary importance.

'Modest' is an adjective often applied to her work, a reference both to the size of Caivano's canvases and lack of pretension in her painting, which invites viewers to immerse themselves within her intricate inner worlds.

These evocations, while always marked by intimate involvement with paint and colour, are also highly varied, employing techniques ranging from washes of thin paint to tiny, flurried brushstrokes or thickly impastoed swathes of colour.

Formal qualities are also diverse, encompassing complex patterning or a hint of figuration.

As one commentator has observed, "Caivano's paintings are undeniably of themselves yet they are also ... touched by and suggestive of the world beyond the studio, beyond the gallery".