Silvia Coco

My thesis work is a visual exploration of stories revolving around the themes of love and immortality. While researching the roots of modern fairy tales, I noticed a common thread between many of them: there are obstacles to gain (or reject) love, and the characters are immortals or gain that privilege through the conquest of their lover. Love becomes a force against which both humans and gods are weak, both in their life and in their death.“The Marriage of Cupid & Psyches” in “The Golden Asse” by Apuleius (Greece, 2nd century AD) is the centerpiece of my thesis work. I illustrated the key moments of the narrative, and I created a color code to allow the viewer to recognize the main characters and follow the story. However, this code and the other idiosyncratic vocabulary of symbolism and metaphor that I developed in the project leave space for interpretation. My intent is not to be rigidly faithful to the original text, but rather to capture its emotions and allow the audience to perceive their own narratives.However, my interest in exploring a variety of formats and experimenting with mediums and techniques (photo collage and transfer, acrylics, inks, color pencils, gouache) also led me to maintain a few satellite projects. Thus, this collection of work represents a survey of my visual vocabulary as well as of the various texts I’ve been reading and illustrating. www.silviacoco.com