About

Tintype by Travis Lovell

bio

Coco Berryessa is a photographic artist exploring themes of identity and impermanence: what stays, and what won’t. Chance occurrences have long shaped her work, now entering through the historic photographic processes that keep her close to the substance of her imagery and which leave room for the unrepeatable. Much of her recent work turns to ordinary daily life: the domestic, the overlooked, the things a day is made of. Drawn to understanding what’s worth noticing before it changes or transforms, she works in a register of wonder and lets the everyday accumulate into something worth materializing. Poems increasingly share the frame as companion pieces, independent of the photographs and inseparable from them.

Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries, featured in books and curated projects, several of them award-winning. Coco holds a BFA in Photography from Utah Valley University, where she later lectured full-time in photography, teaching the craft and finding reward in helping students make and defend art of their own. 

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Artist Statement

My creative practice brings together image and text to tell stories about what stays and what won’t: the evidence of something long gone or since transformed, the overlooked, the seemingly unremarkable things that make up a day, a season, a life, or a self. Everything changes: memories, routines, roles, ideas, beliefs, our sense of identity. I’m interested in observing what’s kept, what falls away, what it means, and what a self becomes over time.

My work is increasingly created using alternative and historic photographic methods. Working directly with tangible materials keeps me close to the subject matter and invites a layer of human influence while still leaving room for what I can’t fully control. This approach to art-making asks me to slow down and engage more intimately with the themes I’m meditating on, and allows the work to have its own say in what it becomes.

More recently, the art I keep finding most rewarding to make exists in the domestic: the small but habitual gestures, the objects we happen to collect or accumulate, and the people, places, and patterns we regularly return to. I’m drawn to environments where identity reveals itself as it develops, changes, or solidifies in the day-to-day. Motherhood has been the clearest version of that for me, lately.

Pairing photography with poetry lets me express themes of impermanence and identity more dynamically. Photographs can hold the presence of a thing, and language can hold what is absent, remembered, imagined, or not yet known or understood. Pairing both means I’m not limited by what either can offer on its own. One extends the other, strengthening connection and deepening understanding of the work for artist and viewer alike.

All of these efforts—noticing the overlooked, attending to what won’t stay, honoring the ordinary, handling the tangible, and quite literally finding the words—are, for me, in pursuit of an answer to one single question: what a life is made of, and what of it can be kept.

C.V.

C.V.

Solo exhibitions marked with (*)

2026 Nouveau Lumière. Gallery on 6th — Orem, UT.

2026Utah Valley University Faculty Show. UVU Museum of Art at Lakemount — Orem, UT

2024Utah Valley University Faculty Show. UVU Museum of Art at Lakemount — Orem, UT

2024Ever Arriving: Highlands to Islands. Gallery on 6th — Orem, UT (Curated by Megan Petersen & Xauntal Clawson.)

2023Utah Valley University Faculty Show. UVU Museum of Art at Lakemount — Orem, UT

2022Utah Valley University Faculty Show. UVU Museum of Art at Lakemount — Orem, UT

2021Unfettered. Gallery on 6th — Orem, UT (Curated by Reid Elem)

2021Displaced. Noorda Center for the Performing Arts — Orem, UT (Curated by Travis Lovell)

2020*Fortuity. BFA Exhibition. Woodbury Art Museum — Orem, UT

2020Student Art Show. Woodbury Art Museum — Orem, UT

2020No. 530. Third Space Studios — Orem, UT

2018Lorem Ipsum. Third Space Studios — Orem, UT

2024Ever Arriving: Highlands to Islands. Phase 3. (Featured photographer; 2025 Independent Publishers Book Awards Silver Medal—Coffee Table Book.)

2023Composing Chaos: Metaphor & Abstraction. Phase 3. (Featured photographer.)

2022UTopia: State of Abstraction. Phase 3. (Featured photographer; 2025 International Book Awards, Winner—Art Books Category; 2022 AIGA SLC 100 Selection.)

2021J’Adore. Phase 3. (Principal and cover photographer; retouching; 2022 Independent Publishers Book Awards Gold Medal—Cover Design (Oversized) and Gold Medal—Cookbook (General); 2022 AIGA SLC 100 Selection.)

2019MILK Vol. 002: A Survey of Contemporary Photography. (Featured photographer.)

2022Gold Medal, Cover Design (Oversized), Independent Publisher Book Awards, for J’Adore

2022Gold Medal, Cookbooks (General), Independent Publisher Book Awards, for J’Adore

2022AIGA SLC 100 Selection, for J’Adore

2020Award of Merit in Photography, Department of Art & Design, Utah Valley University

2019National Champion, Post-Secondary Photography, SkillsUSA

2019Utah State Champion, Post-Secondary Photography, SkillsUSA

Utah Valley University — Orem, UT

Adjunct Instructor, 2026–present

Lecturer (Full-Time), 2022–2024

Adjunct Instructor, 2020–2022

Courses taught

ART 1050Introduction to Photography
Spring, Summer, Fall 2022; Spring, Fall 2023; Spring 2024

ART 200RArt & Design Lecture Series
Fall 2022; Spring, Fall 2023

ART 2720Color Photography
Spring, Fall 2022; Spring, Fall 2023; Spring 2024

ART 2730Photographic Lighting I
Spring 2021; Fall 2022

ART 3750Advanced Digital Imaging
Fall 2022; Fall 2023; Fall 2026

ART 471RPhoto Illustration
Summer 2023

ART 4750Exploratory Processes
Spring 2023; Spring 2024

ART 1400Graphic Computer Applications
Fall 2020; Fall 2021

ART 1750Introduction to Digital Imaging
Fall 2021

Brigham Young University — Provo, UT

Adjunct Instructor, 2022

Courses taught

DESPH 240Photographic Lighting I
Winter 2022

2022Gold Medal, Cover Design (Oversized), Independent Publisher Book Awards, for J’Adore

2022Gold Medal, Cookbooks (General), Independent Publisher Book Awards, for J’Adore

2022AIGA SLC 100 Selection, for J’Adore

2020Award of Merit in Photography, Department of Art & Design, Utah Valley University

2019National Champion, Post-Secondary Photography, SkillsUSA

2019Utah State Champion, Post-Secondary Photography, SkillsUSA

2022Gold Medal, Cover Design (Oversized), Independent Publisher Book Awards, for J’Adore

2022Gold Medal, Cookbooks (General), Independent Publisher Book Awards, for J’Adore

2022AIGA SLC 100 Selection, for J’Adore

2020Award of Merit in Photography, Department of Art & Design, Utah Valley University

2019National Champion, Post-Secondary Photography, SkillsUSA

2019Utah State Champion, Post-Secondary Photography, SkillsUSA