Manuela Marques, who studied modern literature at Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle, discovered her passion for photography, which she considers a new visual grammar.
Influenced by structuralism, the artist undertook innovative work by creating constellations and networks of images to explore the constitutive structures of the image and understand its overall meaning. She explains, "In a certain way, it responds to an inventory of constitutive structures of the image to understand its overall meaning."
Manuela Marques has already exhibited her work in numerous solo exhibitions since 1992, including at the André Malraux Museum in Le Havre, the Domaine de Kerguéhennec Art Center, and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Lisbon. She is also the winner of the Besphoto 2011 prize, and her work was featured at the Museu Coleção Berardo in Lisbon on that occasion. Her work has garnered the admiration of many art critics and historians, such as Gilles A. Tiberghien, Michel Poivert, Sérgio Mah, Jacinto Lageira, Lisette Lagnado, Léa Bismuth, and Emilia Tavares. Several monographs have been dedicated to her, published by Editions Marval and Loco Éditions in Paris.
Manuela Marques also shares her unique vision of photography: "I certainly have the feeling of the preexistence of the image at the moment of taking the shot. The image is, for me, prior to its materialization in front of the lens. I believe, in fact, that one carries a landscape within oneself before it presents itself to us."