Maceió, Brazil, 1943 \ Lives and works in Maceió
Since the early 1980’s the surprising and fascinating work of Martha Araújo has focused on the limits of the body, understood in its physical, individual sense and its metaphorical, poetic connotations, in which the body is invited to publicly interact with the clothes and objects produced by the artist, and frequently with other people, thus becoming, to all effects, a communal, collective body.
Araújo participated in the VII and IX Salão Nacional de Artes Plásticas (MAM/RJ). She was granted an award at the 10th Salão Carioca de Artes (1986) and carried out solo exhibitions at numerous venues, such as Galeria do Centro Empresarial Rio, Rio de Janeiro (1986); Galeria Karandash, Maceió (1989); Galeria de arte do IBEU, Rio de Janeiro (1991); Galeria de Arte do Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto, Rio de Janeiro (1992); Itaugaleria, São Paulo (1992), RG – Oficina de Arte, Maceió (1993); and Galeria de Arte ACBEU, Salvador (1994). In 2012 she held the individual exhibitions Entrópicos at the Pinacotèque of the Universidade Federal de Alagoas and Casulares Eclipsados at Arte Plural Galeria in Maceió. In 2014 the artist participated in the 12th Bienal de Cuenca, and in the group shows Ultrapassados at Broadway 1602, New York, at ArteVida in Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, and also in the III Mostra do Programa de Exposições 2014 of the Centro Cultural São Paulo as Guest Artist.
In 2023, Martha Araújo received the Achievement Award from CIFO Grants & Commissions and took part in a group exhibition at MARCO Monterrey. In 2015, she had her first solo exhibition at Galeria Jaqueline Martins, Para um corpo pleno de vazios. In 2016 she was part of the group show Resistance Performace – Aesthetic Strategies under Repressive Regimes in Latin America at the Migros Museum in Switzerland and in 2017 was chosen to be part of the important retrospective exhibition Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985, organized by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and with itinerancies to the Brooklyn Museum, New York and Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo. Since then, she has also participated in group shows at KADIST Foundation, Paris, and Broad Art Museum, Michigan, USA.
