TR

2016

Juliana Manara catches ideas from real life and she transforms them into fantasies. Different camera formats, dreamy scenarios and little characters are the main details to be found in these unique works of photographic montage and more.

Could you elaborate on your artistic practice? Your later works deal with some plays around scale, how did this aspect of scale come into light?

I like to play with little characters and to use photography as the main tool to create this surreal and playful images. Little characters represent us, the existence, people, human and all the relationship with have with the nature, animals and objects around us. To create this characters I was creatively influenced by a portuguese poet called Fernando Pessoa from the 19th and 20th century. I used to read them when I was 13, 14 years old. I believe some how this made an impact on my creations. I do work with photographic montages
so my process starts with the first and most important shot that is the scenario, created in a studio or the landscapes photographed in specific places. Later I sketch the ideas and feelings and start to add little characters into the images. Sometimes is fun and humorous but sometimes I like to claim issues we face through our generation. My late works seems to be full of little characters and in a larger scale but there was no purpose in creating it this way but was all related to what I felt when I had the scenarios ready to start playing with them. When I created The Circus I was happy and wish I could have all people I love around
me, so I was inspired to fill the clouds with happy friends doing nice things and having fun. The same happened to Secret Gardeners, but when I had this big Garden ready I couldn’t stop thinking about little lives living through the nature so again I filled with little characters exploring this environment.

Have you ever produced work in Brasil? How would you compare the viewpoint on printworks in Brasil and the process of production with the view from London? Has your work evolved or how has it evolved from when producing in Brasil and in London?

I am based in London since 2010 but I left Brazil a year before to do a master in photography in Paris. When I was in Brazil, in Sao Paulo, where I’m from, I have created a lot of works but I never introduced it to the major public. My career as an artist developed and established in London, and London is my base now, after an intensive training with renowned artists I was able to set with my own studio and to expose it to a higher audience. My artistic relation with Brazil happened after all this so it is hard to compare both places. Although Brazil is facing a government crises at moment I feel the art audience is getting stronger and there is a lot spaces and events dedicated to art as Sp-Art, Art Rio and contemporary galleries that I also collaborate with. I have Brazilian collectors and we have a big project for a coming up exhibition in Sao Paulo, and Im very excited about it.

Also, the notion of color has evolved in your prints, how has this evolution happened?

Before exploring photography in an artistic way I used to do a lot of portraits and documental works. I used to photograph a lot in black and white and old films. Also learned photography when digital era was just beginning, so I had the opportunity to learn how to enlarge the negatives and develop photographs in the darkroom - that time most of my tests were in black and white. My transaction to fine art photography followed with some influences of this past works I did when younger. I love monochromatic prints, but I also enjoy the impact and meanings for the colours and i just didn’t know how to add them into my pictures . The first colourful peace was related to the nature and freedom so I couldn’t imagine this artwork without colours. after it, colours were more frequent in my creations.

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