Manuel

Born in 1991 in Minas Gerais, a vast inland state in southeastern Brazil known for its colonial-era towns founded in the 18th century when the country was experiencing a gold rush .

Currently residing in Montpellier, Manuel practices drawing and painting in a unique way.

His personal artistic production begins around the age of five.

His first major artistic influence was his discovery, at the age of fourteen, of the cinema of the new Hollywood. Viewing these films was a significant aesthetic shock as their work was thematically complex, formally innovative, morally ambiguous, and rich in mythical resonance.

The new Hollywood has seen the birth of some of the greatest directors and greatest works in film history where immorality and extreme violence, previously censored by the Hays Code, intermingle in twilight and desperate stories. Ambiguity, the realistic view of individuals and their problems, the willingness to explore the depths of the human soul and the use of antiheroes are themes that stand out in His pictorial work. Graduated from a Master in Contemporary Plastic Practices at Paul Valéry III University in Montpellier, the artist also gives courses in oil painting for the Atelier de Mo located in the fine arts district of Montpellier and for the Arts and Culture Association of Crès (34).

His personal artistic practice is done naturally, almost daily. Artistic creation is for him a strong conviction, a passion.

For several years, he has also been practicing photography and video.

His pictorial inspirations are: Jan Van Eyck, Edvard Munch, Vilhelm Hammershoi, Edouard Manet, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Caravaggio & Francis Bacon.

He is also a reader of poems, in particular poetry from the second half of the 19th century (Rimbaud-Baudelaire-Verlaine-Sully Prudhomme).

He developed the concept of "silent painting" through oil painting. The notion of "silent" painting is an attempt to materialize silence with a medium that appeared in the 15th century.

The goal is to set up a combination of aesthetic choices in order to create a stagnant atmosphere, where time seems to stand still. Restricted color palette, contemporary ruins as an image of the mental space of a human being and inanimate objects such as automatons, dolls and wax figures are the main components. The combination of these different elements tends to approach the concept of "disturbing strangeness" theorized by Sigmund Freud in 1919.

Indeed, silent painting is a structure put in place to reflect the depths of the human soul. The strange, etymologically what is exterior, unfamiliar, can also refer to what is hidden deep down.

His work is in a way an autopsy of the human psyche -

Silence as sound state, silence as meditation, silence as pain.

Painting as expression, painting as conviction, painting as passion.