"Reach your soul through art and find your free inner child who will bring you to life again.

 

Art is creating perfection with imperfection, it’s freedom, I’m reinventing myself each time I’m starting a new piece." 

 

Cooky Maia Casta.

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Cooky Maia Casta is a French-American contemporary artist based between Los Angeles and France.

Her work explores one of the most universal human journeys: the search for the authentic self beneath expectations, fear, and the need for approval.

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Her relationship with art began unexpectedly during a period of recovery as a young adult, when an accident and serious bone-related health challenges temporarily left her confined to a wheelchair. During long days in the hospital, she discovered pastel painting. Soon, the white sheets of her hospital bed became covered with vibrant clouds of color. Nurses and hospital staff would regularly stop by her room, eager to discover what she had created that day. What began as a way to escape physical limitations became a language through which she could express what words could not.

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Growing up, Cooky often felt caught between two forces: the desire to be loved and accepted, and the longing to remain true to herself. For years, she searched for her place in the world, believing she had to become who others expected her to be. Only later did she realize she had been searching for herself.

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That realization transformed not only her life, but the way she creates.

Through her paintings, Cooky explores the invisible space between expectations and authenticity, between proving and being. Her work invites viewers to pause, breathe, and reconnect with the part of themselves that may have been forgotten beneath years of performance, fear, and the need for approval.

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Her signature Urban Jungle series reflects this emotional landscape through structured forms, organic movement, vibrant color, and expressive textures. While each series evolves visually, the intention remains the same: to create work that resonates beyond aesthetics and offers a deeply human experience.

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For Cooky, painting is not about illustrating answers. It is about creating a space where something inside can soften. A place where, for a brief moment, we stop searching outside ourselves and hear the quiet truth within.

Her greatest hope is that people leave her work feeling lighter, more present, and more deeply connected to themselves.

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Because sometimes, beneath all the noise, there is a voice that has never stopped whispering:

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"I'm here."