Rochelle Costey, photographer and visual artist, has died at the age of 61

Rochelle Coste, photographer and artist, died on Saturday afternoon, 26, at the age of 61, as a result of being run over in the area of ​​the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS) in São Paulo. His art was known for appreciating everyday objects and installations under his eyes.

Born in Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, in 1961, she underwent eye surgery at the age of three, which required several visual exercises to rebuild her view of the world.

In 1978 he started a course in social communication at the Pontifical Catholic University of Porto Alegre (PUC-RS), graduating in 1981. He lived for a few months in Belo Horizonte, had contact with art studios and took an extended course in photography at the University of Minas Gerais Federal (UFMG). In São Paulo, where he has lived for many years in recent decades, he first arrived in 1988, but spent some time in London in the early 1990s.

It is said that he started taking pictures because he did not know how to paint, and through photography he ended up in the visual arts. In his work, it was common to find everyday objects. In 1995, he explained to Estadao: “I always work with materials found in everyday life, such as wigs and mirrors… I collect these materials for years before using them in my work”.

In The Rooms (1998), one of his major works, he sought to show how “intimacy, so personal and profound, becomes universal”. In addition to works exhibited in various corners of Brazil, his works have also received international recognition in countries such as the United States, Spain, China, Ecuador, England, Portugal and Guatemala. In the latter country, for example, it was 2006 and he made several handicraft store records, reflecting the production process and the exhibition for the sale of items.

Among his most recent exhibitions was A Terceira Margem, at the Oficinas Culturais Oswald de Andrade, in São Paulo, which took place in October 2021. The images printed in the form of large curtains allowed the audience to observe part of the scenarios they encountered on a trip to the Amazon, such as as a shop for Chinese products On the border between Bolivia and Brazil, or the headquarters of a cultural group of the indigenous Honey Quinn people in Acre.