"I thought love was supposed to be difficult and hurtful."

If artist Coco Dávez had to paint love, he would use two colors: red and yellow. "Red for passion, but also for the desire to remain attentive: love often ends because we think it will never end and because we take things for granted. And no, we must care for it as if it were a living being. And yellow because it's a very luminous place, and human beings need to feel loved and calm. Yellow is also a color."

Yellow and red represent love in the mind of the Madrid-born artist, who confesses that her concept of love has changed over time. "Most of the relationships I've had have been tortuous, and I sought them out because I had a misconception. I thought love should be difficult and hurtful; I sought out impossible loves because I thought that's what love was," she says.

When he met Nolo, ten years ago, there was no expectation of seduction, which led the artist to approach him differently. "I followed him on Instagram in the early days of the app, when we only followed 100 people or fewer, and we had bumped into each other at events in Madrid. I admired his work, but I never had any intention of flirting with him," explains Coco Dávez.

In the end, it was coffee that brought them together. "He has a coffee brand and, as luck would have it, he had one of his coffee shops next to my studio and another next to my house." As we bumped into each other, a friendship developed. "At first, he was just a person I was happy to see," says the artist, and it wasn't until 2019 that they decided to meet outside of the coffee shops. "He suggested we go see him." What burns", by Oliver Laxe, because my maternal family is Galician. It wasn't supposed to be a romantic date, but from that day on, we haven't been apart."

At first, the relationship raised doubts in him. "There were no major problems or ups and downs: did that mean it was love?" the artist wondered. "It was hard for me to see that there were healthier forms of love than the one I had experienced." They even went to couples therapy: "At first, we were embarrassed to talk about it because it seemed like a failure, but it was quite the opposite. It was a journey into each other's lives and it was very beautiful, the best thing we've ever done as a couple." And so, day after day, Coco Dávez continues to paint love in red and yellow.