Bianca Raffaella: Overall Winner, Women in Art Prize 2025
Bianca Raffaella is a British artist whose extraordinary practice is shaped by her experience as a registered blind person. Working from memory, touch, and sensory cues rather than direct sight, she creates ethereal floral and figurative paintings that capture "persistent vision" — the brief, ghostly impressions of light that remain in her field of view.
Her canvases are rendered in soft dusty pinks, muted blues, and gentle beiges. She applies paint directly with her fingertips, pressing copper plates to build monoprints of remarkable delicacy. Jonathan Jones of The Guardian has described her work as "ethereally beautiful."
A trailblazer in every sense, Raffaella was the first registered blind student to graduate from Kingston University with a First-Class Honours degree in Fine Arts (2016). She was selected by Dame Tracey Emin for the inaugural Tracey Emin Artist Residency (2023/4) at TKE Studios, Margate, and is now represented by Flowers Gallery.
Her 2025 solo exhibition Faint Memories marked a new chapter, followed by a BBC World Service In the Studio documentary in January 2026 that introduced her practice to a global audience. Harper’s Bazaar named her one of "Three To Watch: Hotly Tipped Female Talent of the British Art Scene."
At the 2025 Women in Art Prize ceremony, Raffaella won both the Overall Prize and the Printing Prize for her series Just out of reach – Close; Closer; Closest. Her award led directly to a solo show at The Art Academy London in early 2026.
"I’m recognised as an artist, not a ‘blind artist’. Adversity and perceived limitations have shaped me as an artist and as a person."