Maria Lira Marques was born in 1945 in Araçuaí, Minas Gerais, Brazil, where she continues to live and work. An artist, writer, and educator, her practice spans drawing, painting, embroidery, writing, and community-based artistic processes—all deeply rooted in the Jequitinhonha Valley. Her work weaves together oral traditions, spirituality, folk culture, and vernacular knowledge through a visual language defined by symbols, poetic narratives, and artisanal techniques. Using natural pigments, handmade paper, textiles, embroidery, and calligraphic elements, she creates compositions inhabited by birds, saints, rivers, hybrid figures, and cosmic motifs, transforming everyday materials into structures of memory, imagination, and transcendence. Her body of work establishes a unique dialogue between contemporary art and Brazilian folk traditions, exploring themes of ancestry, territory, and collective experience. She has participated in significant exhibitions dedicated to Brazilian folk and contemporary art, including shows at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Sesc, and the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil. Her work is held in various Brazilian institutional collections—most notably at the Instituto Inhotim—cementing her standing as a key voice in contemporary artistic production connected to the knowledge and traditions of the Jequitinhonha Valley.