Varela’s practice largely consisted of portraits, where the figure is given a quasi ascetical stylisation and elegance, and the self-portraits he executed almost obsessively that allow us to follow his evolution as a painter, as well as manifold rural and urban landscapes of his native Alicante and, finally, interiors and still lifes.

The artist paints the spaces and objects surrounding him—interiors of familiar, everyday environments, suffused with a soothing, secluded atmosphere. Always depicted in twilight, the light filters in through a window or door, and the objects tell us of a simple, austere existence marked by the Mediterranean climate which imposes its own pace of life.

His still lifes are usually small fragments of any of these interiors. The objects we see in them are mundane, familiar, domestic and repeated time and again: jugs, vases, earthenware dishes, flowers and fruit, rendered either in traditional or vanguardist styles, but invariably lending pride of place to light and its treatment.