Cosimo Barletta & Mayda Mason

About artist

Cosimo Barletta & Mayda Mason, a creative duo with a varied and multifaceted background.

Cosimo was born in 1978, in a village on Lake Como (Italy). He then moved to the island of Grado, in the northern Adriatic, where the sparkling environment sparked his love of photography. Passionate about technology, he soon got to know computers. He also became acquainted with poetry, culminating in his first publication in a collection of poems and verses. The years of his youth were divided between his studies in electronics and his passion for creating his first visual works: in the mid-1990s, while still a student, he took his first steps in 3D modelling and photo-retouching, which led him to acquire considerable experience in the world of the camera lucida. For a sabbatical period he moved away from the PC screens and devoted himself totally to naturalistic photography. Seascapes and mountain landscapes date back to these years, with the first awards and the first regional exhibitions. Over the years, frequenting a certain artistic world linked to the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice reawakened dormant memories and, at the beginning of his professional activity, the first photographic composites were born. He also began teaching, first in private courses and workshops and then in secondary schools and professional institutes. His love of good food made him approach the world of food with enthusiasm and innate curiosity.

Mayda, born in Friuli, in Lignano Sabbiadoro (Italy). Her sweet and carefree childhood led her to paint colourful landscapes from the age of 10. For a few years, she also began a career in lettering, which she has continued in recent years. Life took her away from the artistic field for a while, but her passions were always ready to rekindle, so at the beginning of the new millennium Mayda explored the 3D world with the aim of "creating worlds" and needed textures, which led her to buy her first digital camera to photograph sand and other elements. That first purchase led her to become passionate about photography and shoot countless seascapes. From there it was a short step to creative photography, and here are the first conceptual works born from the strong inner drives that studded her life in those years. Once she had started her professional activity, the main genres, portraits and hotellerie, led her to approach food, and it was during this period that all the photographs in the German-language book "Unsere Friaul-Rezepte: Einfach. Geschmackvoll. Typisch. Bunt' by the famous TV presenters Franz Hlavac and Gisela Hopfmüller.

The paths of life are sometimes mysterious and the two, having known each other for years, begin a personal relationship. Love was born, but something great was also born professionally: two minds, two complementary approaches, she a craftsman and he a digital artist, united in unison.
The Cucina delle Foto project took shape and substance and the efforts and creativity of both led to increasingly popular projects.
Multi-potentiality is the term that describes both of them: from food and set styling to photo retouching, from calligraphy to hyper-realistic painting, from low-temperature cooking to baking in a wood-fired oven, from cocktail preparation to CGI modelling and 3D printing, from paper carving to fabric dyeing and all the new activities undertaken with passion.
A love of bright light that smells of summer, sparkling colours and inspiring stories are basic ingredients for their two-minded work, always colourful and full of energy.

The first important publications arrive: from the BCC to Gambero Rosso, from The Sun to the Royal Photographic Society up to trade magazines with covers and editorials from Australia to India, from the UK to Italy.
The awards and recognitions arrive: more than 140 placings, thirds, seconds and first places, both national and international, including a first and third prize in the category in 2019 at the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year, considered the Oscar of food photography.
Also in the same year, the Italian Rank #1 at the World Top 10's Fine art Photographer and participation in the Italian team at the World Photographic Cup in no less than two categories, Commercial and Illustration/Digital Art, confirm the creativity of the emerging duo.

In the meantime, Cosimo & Mayda's works are travelling more and more: from the Mall Galleries in London to the Moscow Photocenter in Moscow, from the HybridArt Space Gallery in Budapest to the Convention Center in Harrogate, from the Kulturni Center in Gorizia to the Fortezza Medicea in Siena.

Today, their production is divided between clients and multinationals such as Ferrero, bofrost*, Old Wild West and many others, and a personal and artistic research that stems from all the stimuli that enrich them on a daily basis: books, cinema, exhibitions, museums, nature, life experiences and obviously the food and wine experience that fills their days even in their free time.