Éder Oliveira’s practice investigates the symbolic constructions that mark racialized bodies in the Brazilian Amazon, through a critical approach to the modes of representation prevalent in art history and mainstream media. His work focuses on portraiture, used not as a mere formal or documentary exercise, but as a tool for identity reconfiguration and political tension. Drawing from images extracted from official archives and his own photographs, the artist creates paintings and installations that confront colonial stigmas and devices of criminalization. His subjects, usually anonymous and marked by Afro-Indigenous features, are displaced from the sensationalist logic of newspapers and projected — often in monumental scales — under new conditions, restoring their presence, density, and dignity. Through a subtle investigation of color, territory, and power, his work combines different elements to activate discussions surrounding body, subjectivity, visibility, belonging, and symbolic struggle, highlighting how art can intervene in the social contracts that regulate space, memory, and the right to one’s image.

His solo exhibitions include: Pequenos Contratos Sociais (2025, Mitre Galeria, Belo Horizonte – Brazil), Pintura ou a Fotografia como Violência (2017, Palácio das Artes, Belo Horizonte – Brazil), Você é a Seta (2016, Galeria Periscópio, Belo Horizonte – Brazil), and Alistamento (2015–2017, Sesc Galleries in Belém – PA, Ji-Paraná – RO, Macapá – AP, and São Luís – MA). He has participated in several group exhibitions, such as: DelírioTropical (2024–2025, Pinacoteca do Ceará, Fortaleza – Brazil), Encruzilhadas da Arte Afro-Brasileira (2023–2025, CCBB, Brazil), Dos Brasis (2023–2024, Sesc Belenzinho, São Paulo – Brazil), Bienal das Amazônias (2023, Belém – Brazil), Muestra Aquí (2023, Madrid – Spain), 37° Panorama da Arte Brasileira (2022–2023, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo – MAM-SP, São Paulo – Brazil), The Discovery of What It Means (2020, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Chicago – USA), Jamais me olharás lá de onde te vejo (2019, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo – Brazil), Arte-Veículo (2018, Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo – Brazil), Espacio Tomado (2018, Lima – Peru), Malerei aus der Kunstsammlung der Stadt Lingen (2017, Kunsthalle Lingen, Lingen – Germany), A Cor do Brasil (2016, Museu de Arte do Rio – MAR, Rio de Janeiro – Brazil), Salão Arte Pará(2016, Museu Casa das Onze Janelas, Belém – Brazil), 31ª Bienal de São Paulo (2014, Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo, São Paulo – Brazil) and its itinerations, and Pororoca: A Amazônia no MAR (2014, Museu de Arte do Rio – MAR, Rio de Janeiro – Brazil).