Drawer, engraver, and painter with a career that spans more than four decades, Victor Arruda is part of a generation of artists who emerged in Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s and 1980s. In his canvases, he condenses multiple influences from art history, comic books, cinema, pop culture and graffiti found in men’s toilets. This striking visual eclecticism of his work signals a fierce criticism of both formalism and the social conventions that organize and often repress the constitution of individual and collective identities.    

In his paintings, Arruda uses a raw and forceful poetic style, offering a fierce critique of hypocrisy, the abuse of power and the veiled presence of prejudices in society in relation to gender and sexuality issues. He stood out for creating the Tato e Contato (Touch and Contact) group, responsible for setting up the first free art studio for children at Funabem. 

His figurative painting, marked by a comic approach and an expressionist tone, aroused great interest among local and international art critics and collectors. The Italian art historian Achille Bonito Oliva, who regarded Arruda as one of the most important Brazilian artists at the time, called attention to his unique contribution to the international Transvanguarda, a movement that brought together artists interested in the human body as a central element, in dialogue with German Neo-Expressionism and the U.S post-avant-garde 

Since the late 1970s, he has held numerous solo exhibitions at Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1986); Studio d’Arte Giuliana de Crescenzo, Rome, Italy (1988); and MAM Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1993). Among his most recent solo shows are: Examining Myself and Others: Victor Arruda and Carroll Dunham, at Almeida & Dale (2024); the retrospective Temporal, Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro (2022); and MAM Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1993 and 2018). Arruda participated in the Bienal Internacional de Cuenca, Ecuador (1989), and the Bienal Internacional de Arte de Valparaíso, Chile (1994), as well as in recent group shows held at CCBB, Rio de Janeiro; São Paulo and Belo Horizonte, Brazil; and at Pinacoteca do Ceará, Brazil (2025). His work is part of collections such as MAM Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Fundação Serralves, Portugal; Museu de Arte do Rio, Brazil; among others.