Adriana Varejão studied art for the first time at the Parque Lage School of Visual Arts. She had her first solo show at Thomas Cohn Arte Contemporânea in Rio de Janeiro in 1988. She exhibited again at the same gallery in 1991 and 1993. Since then, she has had solo exhibitions in Brazil and abroad, including: Galerie Bárbara Farber, Amsterdam (Holland 1992), Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo (1992), Annina Nosei Gallery, New York (USA, 1995), Galeria Camargo Vilaça, São Paulo (1996 and 2000), Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro (2001). She took part in the IX Salão Nacional de Artes Plásticas (with an acquisition prize in 1987) and several group shows, including the Panorama de Arte Atual Brasileira, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (1993) and the Bienal de São Paulo (1994 and 1998). She has also taken part in many group exhibitions of Brazilian art in countries such as Germany, Holland, Sweden, France, Denmark, etc. She was also present at the Havana Biennale (Cuba, 1994), the Transculture exhibition at the Venice Biennale (Italy, 1995), Arco, the International Contemporary Art Fair in Madrid (Spain, 2000) and the Sydney Biennale (Australia, 2000). She is the first living Brazilian artist to be included (in 2000) in the collection of the recently opened Tate Modern museum in London.