"The raison d'être of painting as an image-making methodology lies at the core of Juan Araujo's work. His driving force is an interrogation of painting's fundamental purpose – with all that this entails: as a special typology of image whose very condition is to exist as an epidermis formed through successive layer deposits, overlapping glazes, possessing no other existence or meaning than what's embedded in the historicity of its productions. (...) For Araujo, creating a painting requires anchoring it to a pre-existing image, in an ecological process of perpetual recycling whose only logic resides in the tangle of fictions each image carries." [Delfim Sardo, El Jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan, 2019].
Araujo's recent solo exhibitions include The Hunter's Dream section at Galleria Continua in Beijing (2024) and Clouds and Shadows on Mars at Palazzo Massimo in Rome (2024). Other key presentations were held at Galeria Luisa Strina in São Paulo (2022), Stephen Friedman Gallery in London (2022), and Culturgest in Lisbon (2018), along with notable projects at Art Basel Unlimited (2021) and PEER London (2019).
His work forms part of major collections including MoMA (New York), Tate Modern (London), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, and Instituto Inhotim (Brazil).