Monica Silva

Monica Silva is an internationally acclaimed Italian-Brazilian artist with a fascinating background. Descending from the Guarani tribe in the Spirito Santo region through her mother's side, she was born and raised in São Paulo. In 1986, she moved to London to learn English and ended up pursuing new careers, including modelling, TV presenting, assistant direction, and eventually photography. For the past 37 years, she has been living in Italy, dedicating her life to music and entertainment, creating stunning album covers and portraits of Italian and international celebrities, as well as prominent managers, intellectuals, and politicians.
One of her most famous photographs is of Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino; she also captured an enigmatic portrait of actor Toni Servillo and art critic Gillo Dorfles, which was awarded Best Photo at the 2011 Venice Biennale.

Silva's work is consistently praised with enthusiastic reviews, and her portraits of showbiz and cultural personalities, along with her travel reportages, are regularly published in major 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, and Rolling Stone.

In 2009, UNESCO ambassador Edith Tamagnini invited Silva to photograph the commemorative book "Perpetual Freedom, San Marino World Heritage" (Unesco, Minerva editions). For a year, she documented the magical city pictured in 224 pages, capturing close-up aerial shots, intimate moments of daily life, and exclusive scenes of the regent captains' investiture. Monica Silva, a visual artist, is frequently involved in important occasions by the renowned brand Nikon Italy. In 2017, she was one of 100 selected artists and paid tribute to Andy Warhol with her shot "Banana Golden Pop Art" in the book "It's a Nikon, It's an Icon," which commemorated Nikon's 100th anniversary. In 2021, she was commissioned by Nikon to write an essay on colour composition for the "Nikon Master of Photography" series, published by Cairo Editori for Corriere della Sera. Her homage to the father of pop art, the "Golden Banana," once again graces the cover. Silva's works are part of both public and private collections.

In 2019, the Stefano Boschi Museum House, one of the most important art museums of the 20th century, commissioned her for "Ode to Silence," a reinterpretation of Giorgio de Chirico's School of Gladiators, included in the "Substitutions" project and now part of the museum’s Contemporary Art Collection.

In 2024, Monica led the My Hidden Ego project at Fabbrica del Vapore, exploring themes of identity and mental health through interactive performance, 15 Minutes to Be Real, and collaterally shooting sessions for Women Through the Lens and Changing Partner Without Change Partner. In October 2024, Silva achieved a milestone with her work 15 Minutes to Be Real performance featured on the cover of La Lettura in Corriere della Sera, which was transformed into digital art (NFT) on the newspaper's platform. This was followed by a full-page article in the Culture section three days later.  MHE Project is an evolution to a more performing project through a holistic approach.

ESSAYS HIGHLIGHTS: Andrea Dusio, critic and art curator, describes her as "an all-round visual artist whose set construction is a kind of reconnaissance into the soul of the story she is about to tell. She uses the language of pop and advertising imagery as a reassuring chromatic/formal device that satisfies the distracted eye, which could mistake her work for David LaChapelle's exuberance. Nevertheless, she opens a kind of view onto the contemplation of what her photography contains, which is mostly invisible to the eye. Monica's language is an extremely personal form of magical realism." The art critic and historian Vincenzo Trione, who was the curator of the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale in 2015, describes Silva's photographic mise-en-scenes inspired by Caravaggio for the Lux Et Filum project: "For her, the past does not exist in the strictest sense...Monica Silva makes temporal leaps...She thinks of each shot as a theatre piece in which memory is reconfigured with ease...She is not afraid to render her sources unrecognizable through a style that eschews excess and exuberance. This is the strength of the hyper baroque reinterpretations of art history accomplished through the photographic medium by Monica Silva."

Monica Silva is co founder of Factory of Art studio, in partnership with designer Valerio Fausti, where they collaborate on projects that blend art, design, and social impact.

PUBLICATIONS

Numerous publications with her signature, including: 
"Nikon Master of Photography" Corriere Della Sera (Cairo Ed.)
"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)

GROUP & SOLO EXHIBITIONS: 

2006: “Percorsi Illuminati” Mondadori Multicenter (Bologna)
2007: “People I Met”, Palazzo Mancini, (Town Hall, Cattolica) - “Body & Soul on Hi Key” Mondadori Multicenter (Milano)
2008: “Life Above All”, Mazzoleni Art Gallery (Milan/Lugano) 
2009: “The women of Spoon River”,  Abbazia di Pomposa, Stefano Forni art Gallery, Codigoro Town Hall,  (Bologna, Codigoro) - “GEMLUC” group show, Mazzoleni Art (Montecarlo) - “Home, World” Foiano Photography Festival, (Foiano) 
2010:“On My Skin”, Stefano Forni Art Gallery Arte Fiera Off, (Bologna) 
2013: “My Hidden Ego”, Palazzo Pichi Sforza (Sansepolcro) - “The Butterfly’s Fall – Postcards from Tokyo”, Nuova Galleria Morone, (Milan) - “Beautiful China”, Nikon group show, Milan Town Hall and China Tourism Board, (Milan) - “See me Gallery”, Group show, (New York) 
2014: “Lux Et Filum A Contemporary Vision of Caravaggio”, Reda1865 World Launch Event Casa Petra (Sao Paulo)
2015: “Lux Et Filum A Contemporary Vision of Caravaggio”, Instituto di Cultura Italia (Sao Paulo) - “Banana Golden Pop Art”, MIA Photography Fair 2015, Still Gallery (Milan) - “Banana Golden Pop Art”, Affordable Art Fair, Gaudì Gallery (Hamburg) 
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) 
2018: “Red Series/Fil Rouge” (Art in a Box group show) Galleria Schubert/Studio Bolzani (Milan) - “Female Photography” collective exhibition at Spazio Tadini Museum (Milan) 
2019: "Photo Rocks" Milano Photo Week - Le Park (Milano)
2019: "Sacro and Profano"  (solo exhibition) Fondazione Maimeri at M.A.C (Milan) - Stefano Boschi Museum in the contemporary art collection with the picture "Invocation to the silence" a personal view of Giorgio De Chirico 'School of the Gladiators. 
2022 "RGB - Angel's Gabriel White Light" Amart Internationa antique art fair - Longari Arte Milano Best Site-specific installation Museo della permanente Milano
2022/2023 "Art beyond Imagination" Longari Arte Milano Exhibition and site-specific art installation

Her works are collected by private owners, museums and public institutions in Italy and abroad.

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 - Keynote

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


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