Oscar Araripe was internationally recognized and acclaimed as an important Brazilian writer, educator, and social and ecological activist well before he turned his talents to painting. With almost 100 solo exhibitions to his credit, Araripe continues to reinvent the art of painting, not only through his spontaneous and unusual brush strokes and colors, but also via his use of unconventional materials ranging from delicate tracing paper and film laser to large-scale public works made of weatherproof synthetic canvases (sail cloth) supported by sturdy tubular structures.

Invited to inaugurate new show places for painting, Oscar Araripe exhibited in the Villa Lobos Room of the National Theatre in Brasilia in 1991 and the following year at Ipanema Beach , Rio de Janeiro, his new and original ecological tribute, The Pillar of Uaupés. He also exhibited Tiradentes, the Brazilian Hero, at the same year, simultaneously in the gardens of the Republic Museum in Rio and on the Mineiro Museum, in Belo Horizonte.

In May, his exhibition Kites at the Bank of Brazil's Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro was followed in June by Extinction Never More in the Botanical Garden, also in Rio, as part of the official presentations of ECO-92 UN World Conference and seen by an estimated 2 million people. In July of 93, re-inaugurating the Ouro Preto Winter Festival, he exhibited Kites of Freedom in Tiradentes Square and in December, Nativity at Brasilia's Oscar Niemeyer famous Our Lady Little Chapel, where we found also beautiful paintings of the brazilian painter Guignard.

In March 94 he relocates his studio to the little historical village of Tiradentes, Minas Gerais, where he now also lives. In April of the same year during FUNREI's 7th. Anniversary celebrations, he exhibited Tiradentes outdoors in São João del-Rei colonial city, where he also opened the 8th. Winter Culture Festival in July with São João Kites, at various locations through out the city.

In May 95 he undertakes an interactive painting project with children of Tiradentes during the Federal University of Minas Gerais Cultural Workshop, exhibiting Day and Night outdoors in Largo das Forras. In July he opens his Tiradentes, the Little Village in the old Courthouse, with 15 landscapes canvasses on the adorable great little town. In December his series of 14 paintings on São João del-Rei goes on show at the Regional Museum. As from 96, he regularly shows his recent works in July at his own galleries in Tiradentes and Porto Seguro. In 99 he turns to the sea and paints seascapes in Ilha Comprida, Brazil and in San Simeon, California, USA.

In 2000 shows his virtual animated exhibition of The Dance of the Flag Ant Eater at www.oscarararipe.com.br . His interactive libertarian Tarot Painting & Player was also high appreciated on his site, as well his sea and landscapes, flowers, animals and sensual drawings. Araripe also took part on World Art on Paper 2000, in Kranj, Slovenia and exhibit in France and Spain .In 2001 shows in Museu de Porto Seguro, Bahia, his Sea Little House and Seascapes. In 2001 he was invited to exhibit America`s Amás in Robert Robeson School in New Jersey, USA and his painting-sculpture Horse to the Visual Arts League Exhibition at Lincoln Center, New York. In 2002 he opens a new personal gallery at the Historical Town, in Porto Seguro, Bahia state and Oscar Araripe, a Cesar Tolentino`s video wons the V Tiradentes Movie Festival and some others all over the country. In 2003 is invited to exhibit in the IV Biennale di Firenze, Italy. In 2004 shows Flores para los vivos at Rosa Girardi Art Space, in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais and Ceará at Cariri University, Crato, and simultaneously at the Oboé Cultural Gallery, in Fortaleza, Ceará. Also in 2004 he portraid his six grandmother Bárbara de Alencar, the brazilian independence and republican heroine and exhibit Two Araripes in Cearense Press Association, also in Fortaleza. Last february he shows An American Springtime at Solange Rabello Gallery, in Miami, USA. In 2005 Oscar Araripe was invited to participate at Caribbean Festival, in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, were he shows his 3mx3m open-air banner Repetroglifos Caribeños. Next february 2006 he will open Tiradentes Revisited, at Solar dos Ramalhos, Tiradentes, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Some statements on Oscar Araripe

“Oscar Araripe – An open clearing exploding in the jungle of painting” - says Jean Boghici.

“His opinions, his lifestyle and his work make up a harmonic whole and go hand in hand with this rare and fortunate, truly fantastic, extraordinary overflowing that his painting reveals” - says Wilson Lima.

“With his outdoor exhibitions, using synthetic canvas for the first time in painting, Araripe meets in an original way the challenge of taking art straight to the multitudes” - says Fernando Lemos.

“Araripe, his painting for me is poetry. It has the beauty of color, the purity and joy of children and the artist’s talent. This is the way real masters create” - says Milton Ribeiro.

“Nobody has portrayed Ouro Preto more beautifully than he; so radiant - and that`s no easy thing finding radiance, beneath all that weight of history ”- writes Gustavo Praça in his book “Hoeing the River”.

“I laid out on the table those 200 or so drawings, done with an incredible mixture of materials - acrylic, pastel, industrial paints, pen and ink - and all done on unheard of tracing- paper. I went through them one by on as if flicking the pages of a book.

This parallel I draw with a text is not as silly as it seems, after all, Oscar Araripe, writer and theatrical whiz-kid, a personality of the 60's, author of a successful book on China and since 1975 a novelist, draws and paints a little like he writes, in a torrent. And, I must confess, it was some trip - as if I, the straightest of them all, had been turned on for the first time" - says Frederico Moraes