" I have, without a doubt, the feeling that the image already exists before the moment of the click. The image, to me, precedes its materialization in front of the lens. I truly believe that we carry a landscape within us before it reveals itself to our eyes."
Manuela Marques is an internationally acclaimed photographer whose work investigates the structure of the image and its relationship with perception. She currently lives and works in Paris, developing an artistic practice that merges a poetic sensibility with rigorous conceptual reflection.
A graduate in Modern Literature from Université Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle, Marques discovered in photography a new visual grammar, which has become the central axis of her artistic research. Influenced by structuralist thought, she has developed an innovative practice, exploring the image as a network of visual constellations that challenge its materiality and meaning. As she explains:
In a way, this corresponds to an inventory of the constitutive structures of the image, with the aim of understanding its global meaning.
Since 1992, her work has been widely exhibited in major institutions such as Musée André Malraux (Le Havre), Centre d’Art du Domaine de Kerguéhennec, and Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea (2022-2023 Lisbon). In 2015, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation presented Versailles - La Face Cachée du Soleil, a photographic and video project created at the Palace of Versailles during its winter closure. Another major project was La Force de Coriolis (Le Collier, Reims), an exhibition designed for the cellars of a prestigious champagne house, where she explored reflections and the subtle presence of natural elements.
In 2011, she was awarded the Besphoto Prize, and her work was exhibited at the Berardo Collection Museum, in Lisbon. Throughout her career, she has been widely studied and analyzed by art critics and historians such as Gilles A. Tiberghien, Michel Poivert, Sérgio Mah, Jacinto Lageira, Lisette Lagnado, Léa Bismuth, and Emília Tavares. Several monographs have been dedicated to her work, published by Éditions Marval and Loco Éditions, in Paris.
Manuela Marques recently exhibited In the Night (February 14 – May 20, 2024) at the Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art (SAMoCA) in Riyadh, curated by Géraldine Bloch. Her work was also presented in Campagne-Première (June – July 2024) in Revonnas, France, curated by Fanny Robin. In September and October 2024, she participates in the International Contemporary Art Festival Sète-Lisbon (SLA), first in Sète, France (September 9 – 14, 2024), and then in Lisbon, Portugal (from October 16, 2024), under the curatorship of Philippe Saulle.
Manuela Marques’ work is included in several prestigious institutional and private collections. In Portugal, her work is part of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon and Paris), the State Contemporary Art Collection, the Berardo Collection Museum, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, the EDP Foundation, the Lisbon City Museum, the Novo Banco Photography Collection, and the Museum of Image (Braga). In France, she is represented in the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (Paris), FRAC Auvergne (Clermont-Ferrand), FRAC Haute-Normandie, Musée André Malraux (Le Havre), Fonds Départemental d’Art Contemporain de l’Essonne, Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Musée de La Roche-sur-Yon, and Agnès b. Collection (Paris). Internationally, her work is included in the Banco Espírito Santo Investment (Brazil), Camões Institute (Paris), Wedge Collection (Toronto, Canada), The Büyükkuşoğlu Collection (Bodrum, Turkey), and the Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art (SAMoCA, Riyadh).
With a constantly evolving body of work, Manuela Marques establishes herself as one of the most distinctive figures in contemporary photography, exploring the tensions between image, perception, and materiality.