Gracinda Candeias was born in Luanda in 1947, the daughter of a painter, José Marques Candeias. At the age of 18, she moved to Porto to pursue a General Painting Course at the School of Fine Arts, studying under renowned painter Júlio Resende, among others. Between 1972 and 1973, she attended courses in Painting and Textiles at the School of Fine Arts in Lisbon. In 1973, she worked as an Assistant at the National Society of Fine Arts and in 1984, she received a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. From 1986 to 1988, she lived in Paris as a scholar of the same foundation, studying under tutors Júlio Pomar and Eduardo Luís. She is a prominent figure in the Portuguese cultural scene. An artist with diverse interests, including painting, performance, set design, fashion, and radio, she also dedicates herself to research projects on topics as varied as African cave art and new image technologies. She is the author of several tile panels in public spaces, with the most famous being the Martim Moniz Metro station in Lisbon. Throughout her career, she has participated in over 500 exhibitions, in cities such as Paris, Lisbon, Brussels, Madrid, Macau, Luanda, Brasília, and Beijing. She has received several awards and distinctions, including the Painter of the Year Award, Lisbon (1982) and the Career Award "Mac/99", Lisbon (1999). Her work is represented in various museums and private collections in Portugal and abroad.