Monica Silva Photography

Based in Milan, Italy

SHORT BIO

Monica Silva is an internationally renowned Brazilian photographer. She is descended from her mother's side of the Guarani tribe in the Spirito Santo region and was born and raised in São Paulo. In 1986, she arrived in London to learn English and ended up becoming a model, television presenter, assistant director, and finally a photographer. She has been living in Italy for over 35 years and has dedicated her entire life since then to music and entertainment, creating amazing album covers and portraits of Italian and foreign celebrities, as well as top managers, intellectuals, and politicians. Famous are her photographs of the Oscar-winning Paolo Sorrentino, the enigmatic portrait of actor Toni Servillo, and the one depicting the art critic Gillo Dorfles, which was awarded best photo at the 2011 Venice Biennale.

Her works are reviewed with enthusiastic tones, and portraits of showbiz and cultural figures, along with her travel reportage, are constantly published in the most important national and international publications such as Corriere della Sera, Sette, Io Donna, Max, Style, Dove, Panorama, Icon, La Repubblica, Il Fatto Quotidiano, Vogue, Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, Wall Street Magazine, El Pais, Istoè, Harper's Bazaar, Le Figaro, Veja, The Traveller, Sunday Times Korea, Rolling Stone.

In 2009, UNESCO ambassador Edith Tamagnini invited her to shoot for the commemorative book Perpetual Liberty, San Marino World Heritage (Unesco, Minerva editions), and she spent a year telling the story through 224 pages of photographs immortalizing a magical city with close-up aerial shots, never shot before, catching thru her lenses unusual images of the everyday life of a magical city with a new light. The book also tells of the most intimate moments of the dressing of the regent captains with unpublished shots never documented before.
The renowned Nikon Italy brand often involves her in important occasions such as the publication of It's a Nikon, It's an Icon, the book commemorating Nikon's 100th anniversary in 2017, where the photographer is among the 100 selected artists and her tribute to Andy Warhol, Banana Golden Pop Art, is included. In 2021, the same brand commissioned her to write an essay on color in composition for the Nikon Master of Photography series edited by Cairo publisher for Corriere della Sera. Once again, her golden tribute (the aforementioned Banana) to the father of pop art is on the cover.

INSPIRATION AND CAREER
Her works are part of public and private collections. In 2019, the Stefano Boschi Museum, one of the most important twentieth-century art museums, commissioned her for Ode to Silence, a reinterpretation of "The School of Gladiators" by Giorgio de Chirico included in the project 'Substitutions' and now part of the contemporary art collection. Andrea Dusio art critic and curator of the artist's solo exhibition, Sacred and Profane, wrote: "She is an all-round visual artist, and the construction of the set is a sort of reconnaissance into the soul of the story she is about to tell. She uses the language of pop and advertising images as a reassuring chromatic/formal device that satisfies the distracted eye for which her work can be assimilated to David LaChapelle's exuberance, but she does so to open a kind of window onto the contemplation of what is really contained in one of her shots, and which is mostly invisible to the eye. Monica's language is, in fact, an extremely personal form of magical realism."
The art critic and historian Vincenzo Trione, already curator of the Italian Pavilion of the 2015 Venice Art Biennale, thus describes her photographic stagings inspired by Caravaggio for the Lux Et Filum project: «For Monica, the past in the proper meaning does not exists |…|Monica Silva implements time jumps |…| Think of each shot as a theater in which memory is reconfigured with ease. |…| She is not afraid to make the sources she referred to unrecognizable through a style that does not fear excesses and exuberances. Here is the strength of the hyper-baroque reinterpretations of the history of art carried out through the photographic medium, by Monica Silva».

PUBLICATIONS

Numerous publications with her signature, including: 
"No News, Good News" G. Colin (Rizzoli)
"It's a Nikon, It's an Icon" 100 years of Nikon in the eyes of 100 photographers
"Facce da MAC "(Apple) Alberto Pucci (Mondadori)
"Art Book” (Libreria Bocca 1775)
"Shooting Yourself "Haje Jan Kamps (Contrast ed.)
"Fotostorie" La Lettura (Corriere della Sera Foundation)
"Mythographies" G. Colin, San Marino  Unesco 
"Libertà Perpetua" (Minerva ed.)
"Il Panino dal Mare" Alessandro Frassica (Giunti Ed.)
"Le Voci dei Libri" Ezio Raimondi Cover picture (Il Mulino ed)
"Maionese di fragole" Moreno cedroni Cover Picture (Mondadori ed)

A SELECTION OF GROUP & SOLO EXHIBITIONS: 

2022/2023. "Art Beyond Imagination", Longari Arte Milano ( Milan)
2022. "Gabriel's White Light", Prize best installation 2022 Longari Arte Milano Gallery  (Museum della Permanente) 2019. Sacro & Profano (M.A.C. - Milano)
2019. Photo Rocks (Milano Photo Week  Le Park - Milano)
2016. “Lux Et Filum A Contemporary Vision of Caravaggio”, MIA Photography Fair, Bianconi Gallery (Milan)
2017. “Banana Golden Pop Art”, Milan Design Week, Brazil S/A (Università Statale Milan)
2015. Lux Et Filum (Istituto di Cultura Italia - S. Paulo)
2014. Lux Et Filum A Contemporary Vision of Caravaggio (Reda1865 - S. Paulo)
2013. My Hidden Ego (Kemon Palazzo Pichi Sforza - Sansepolcro)
2013. The Butterfly’s Fall Postcards from Tokyo  (Nuova Galleria Morone - Milano)
2010. On My Skin Arte Fiera off (Galleria Stefano Forni - Bologna)
2009. The Women of Spoon River Abbazia di Pomposa  (G. Stefano Forni - Codigoro)
2010. On My Skin (Galleria Mazzoleni - Milano)
2008. Life Above All (Galleria Mazzoleni - Milano)
2007. People I Met (Palazzo Mancini - Cattolica)
2007. Body and Soul on Hi Key (Mondadori Multicenter - Milano) 2006. Percorsi Illuminati (Mondadori - Bologna)
Mostre collettive: 2022. "Absence" Mia PHOTO FAIR, Paola Colombari Art Gallery ( Milan)
2021. Tilda Swinton Design Week Maroncelli District (Galleria Paola Colombari - Milano)
2019."Ode to the silence" Stefano Boschi museum contemporary art collection a personal view of Giorgio De Chirico 'School of the Gladiators. 2018. Fotografia Femminile (Museo Tadini - Milano)
2018. Fil Rouge/Red Series Art in the Box ( Galleria Schubert, Studio Bolzani - Milano)
2017. Banana Golden Pop Art Design Week Brazil S/A (University Statale - Milano)
2016. Lux Et Filum  Mia Photo Fair (Galleria Bianconi - Milano)
2015. Banana Golden Pop Art, Mia Photography Fair (Galleria Still Denis Curti - Milan)
2015. Banana Golden Pop Art  (Galleria Gaudi - Hamburg)
2013. See Me  (See Me event - New York)
2010. Missing You  (Saatchi Gallery - London) 2009. Gemluc (Galleria Mazzoleni - Montecarlo)
2009. Home, World Foiano Photography Festival (Foiano)

TALKS AND CONFERENCES

TEDx Rovigo Keynote speaker 2017
Lucca Photography Festival - Psychology in portraiture (Lucca) 2010
Università Popolare di Camponoogara - Secrets of Portraiture (Venice) 2016
Università Popolare di Camponogara - Portraiture in the times of selfie (Venice) 2018
Foiano Photography Festival - Were you born creative or did you learn it? 2010
Corriere Della Sera UNIVERSIDAY  - How Photography Changes the World  (IULM Milan) 2015
IULM - Portraiture in the History of Man (Milan) 2016
IED/TAU VISUAL - Creative Portraiture in the Era of selfie (Milan) 2018
CIRCOLO FOTOGRAFICO MILANESE "Portraiture" (Milan) 2019

CORPORATE WORKSHOP MASTER: 

Manfrotto School of Xcellence - Psychology Portraiture - 6 editions (Milan - Bassano del Grappa)
Nikon School - Psychology Portraiture - 10 editions (Bologna - Rome - Milan - Oslo - Egadi Islands - Rimini)
Leika / NOC - Let there be Light - 1 edition (Milan)
Hasselblad - My Hidden Ego - 6 editions (Tokyo - Milan - Porto - Lisbon - Monopoli)
Ypsilon - My Hidden Ego - 2 editions (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
Treoci - My Hidden Ego - 2 editions (Venice)
IULM - Lighting in Portraiture - 1 edition (Milan)
Paoletti School of Photography - Light in Nude Photography - 1 edition (Bologna)

AWARDS: 

Honourable Mention for “Lux Et Filum A Contemporary Vision of Caravaggio” in 2014, IPA Awards
Biennale International of Art 2011, Venice, Italy Best Picture “Dorfles infinito e lo sguardo a Ghirri” 
“Best Brazilian Photographer in Italy 2018” by Focus Brasil Foundation, Globo Group, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Brazil 

SKILLS: 

Psychology Portraiture - Expert in Great Masters' Art History - Public Speaking - Writing - Black Belt of Photography Lighting - Video Direction

Technologies: Mac - Adobe Photoshop - Adobe Lightroom  

Spoken languages: Portuguese (mother tongue), English (proficiency), Italian (advanced), Spanish (intermediate), French (intermediate)


Monica Silva lives and works in Milan, Italy
MONICA SILVA IS AMBASSADOR FOR MANFROTTO, NIKON ITALIA