Raphaela Cocotos

Raphaela Cocotos (b.1999) is a multimedia artist who is currently enrolled in her final year of Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand. Cocotos’ artworks employ frameworks centred around healing, the body and mental illness. She draws inspiration from personal experiences and utilizes the act of repetition as part of her process in order to furtherinvestigate the concept of healing. 

Cocotos’ work can be understood as an in-depth exploration into the relationship between repetitive behaviours and aspects of abjection that are present within mental illness through the use of food, weaving, and list-making. Her explorative process makes use of these mediums in order to conceptualise and materialise the aforementioned concepts in relation to the ritualization of repetitive behaviours linked to religion, the body, fear, food, nudity, and mental distortion of the physical body (body dysmorphia).