Manuela Noble

Manuela by Muriel Despiau

Manuela by Jean Barak

Profile

Manuela is profoundly marked by her European and African origins. Her roots spread from Cape Verde and Morocco to Portugal and France. Having been an expert guide-interpreter, translator and painter, she soon began devoting all her time to attending open workshops at the Ecole Supérieure d’Art (Art College) in Aix-en-Provence, while taking classes in live-model drawing, painting techniques and digital photography. Manuela is now fully dedicated to her artistic pursuits in Aix-en-Provence. 

Artistic Approach

Her multidisciplinarity, curiosity, taste for improvising and experimenting, combined with her sensitivity and affinity for the living has taken her from framed canvases to unprepared canvases before painting directly on bodies in a performance-art configuration. The ephemeral, in situ creations, collective projects and the fleeting existence of her art are key to her motivation.

Moving from her studio into the street to perform her ‘living’ art either in public or private enables her to question the role of the denuded female body.

She does this by performing in places that may seem inappropriate for semi-nude models or by harnessing the bodies of dancers swathed in fabric and paint in its most natural expression.

Manuela came to incorporate photography into her artistic approach at a later date. Having attracted photographers intrigued by her method of expression, she soon felt compelled to photograph her own performances to crystallise her artistic cycle by her own means.

Fine art photography has since opened the door to a myriad of creative possibilities.

Bodypainting projects

Such projects are based on fostering a collective artistic process where experimentation acts as the source of inspiration for Manuela Noble – artist and body painter – and the dancers, musicians, photographers and video artists who also believe in the art of multidisciplinarity.

This is why Manuela is involved in street art, performing arts and performance through a range of events and workshops:

- Creating multidisciplinary performances for cultural projects as part of events, festivals, street art, stage shows, dance performances, concerts and plays hosted   by private/ public bodies

- Shooting photos, videos and film clips (partnerships with photographers and video artists)

- Organising workshops.

Solo exhibitions

Painting on inert media – a pivotal lever – gives her the means to alternate between collective projects and solo exhibitions (paintings and photographs).

- Paintings on different media

- Photographs on different media

Her body painting creations can be described as expressionist and are always abstract.

On canvas, she has been qualified as having an expressionist, semi-figurative style currently moving towards abstraction.

Inspirations: Emil Nolde, Georg Baselitz, Anish Kapoor, Miguel Barcelo, Munch, Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Francis Bacon, Dieter Hacker, Swymkowicz, Ernest Pignon Ernest, Franz Marc, Egon Schiele, Chagall, Matisse, Le Caravage, Turner, Paul Cezanne, Van Gogh, Delacroix, Marina Abramovic, Vanessa Beecroft, Cindy Sherman, Valie Export, Enki Bilal, Pina Baush, de Keersmeker, Découfflé, Bartabas ; graffiti, prehistoric paintings, African art and native American art, Provence.