Cybèle Varela

1943, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Lives and works in Madrid, Spain

Cybèle Varela

1943, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Lives and works in Madrid, Spain

Cybèle Varela followed a five-year course at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) of Rio de Janeiro, later pursuing studies in art history at the École du Louvre and the École des Hautes Études-Sorbonne, with scholarships from the French government. She began her artistic career in Brazil in the 1960s, working with painting and objects, and later incorporating photography and video. Her early work offered a critical and often ironic view of urban life, influenced by American Pop Art and the Brazilian Tropicalist movement.

After moving to Paris, Varela was an artist in residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts. There, she developed her Images series, exploring the representation of nature through painting, photography and video. Her work subsequently evolved towards a geometric construction of space, a research she continued after moving to Switzerland in 1978, often combining photographic and filmed elements with fragments of nature.

In the 1990s, she developed works featuring public benches and tropical gardens, later incorporating elements of Celtic culture and the natural landscape. From 2000 onwards, her practice increasingly focused on self-representation, with paintings, photographs and videos questioning the image and identity of the artist.

Varela has exhibited widely in Europe, the United States and South America, including at the São Paulo Biennial. Her work is held in international public and private collections, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and MASP in São Paulo.