Spotlight

Spotlight artist Bianca Raffaella

Championed by Matthew Flowers
The Wick Culture - Bianca Raffaella Potter’s Rose, 2024, Acrylic on wooden panel, 15 x 15 cm
Above  Bianca Raffaella Potter’s Rose, 2024, Acrylic on wooden panel, 15 x 15 cm
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ONES TO
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The Wick Culture - Bianca Raffaella in TKE Studios, October 2024, Photo Antonio Parente. Courtesy Flowers Gallery
Above  Bianca Raffaella in TKE Studios, October 2024, Photo Antonio Parente. Courtesy Flowers Gallery
Interview
Bianca Raffaella
Photography
Antonio Parente
27 November 2024
Interview
Bianca Raffaella
Photography
Antonio Parente
27 November 2024
“As a tactile and intuitive painter, I express the constant motion and visual disturbances of my sight through gestural marks in my paintings”, says artist Bianca Raffaella, who paints with touch and memory, creating ethereal, sublime works that evoke the fragility of perception. “I maintain continuous contact with the canvas, blending colours until they form “hushed impressions”, and creating details with bursts of energy guided by my fingertips.”
Raffaella’s process allows echoes of forms to seep through, just barely perceptible to the fully sighted viewer – male and female figures, flowers – emerging from the contours and shadows. The rising star has recently joined the roster of Flowers Gallery, who will hold a solo exhibition of her work, aptly titled, Faint Memories, in February next year. Showcasing a new body of acrylic and ink ‘memoryscapes’, she introduces tactile new materials like foil and leaf, Raffaella sees her works as “a release of emotions and expressions that reflect my experience of visual impairment, using soft, dusty colours and rough, tactile surfaces. I work with my hands as my primary visual aid, making critical marks and strokes on the canvas within a limited time before my eyes fatigue.”

Raffaella’s champion for The Wick is Matthew Flowers, Managing Director of Flowers Gallery. He said: “Bianca Raffaella’s work is deeply personal and moving, shaped by her unique perspective as a visually impaired artist and her intuitive, physical painting process. Her ability to distill and communicate fleeting impressions into beautiful, ethereal, textural compositions is remarkable. At Flowers Gallery, we are proud to champion Bianca’s extraordinary talent and her skill in creating work that resonates so deeply. Her upcoming exhibition, Faint Memories, will undoubtedly be a defining moment in her career, and I look forward to witnessing what I’m certain will be an exceptional artistic journey.”

This is an exciting new chapter for an artist who only exhibited her work publicly for the first time in 2021 – at the Royal Academy Summer Show. As for her ambitions, Rafaella says, “I aim to show the ‘fully sighted’ that having a visual impairment does not restrict one from being a visual artist. Through painting and drawing, I actively challenge viewers’ preconceptions about what a visually impaired artist can create and perceive. I believe that increasing exposure to different perspectives and experiences is essential for breaking down stigmas, barriers, and limitations in society.”

About the champion

The Wick Culture - Matthew Flowers 2017 Shot at Flowers Galleries, Kingsland Road, March 2017. Photograph by Paulina Korobkiewz

Matthew Flowers has been Managing Director of Flowers Gallery since 1989, staging over 900 exhibitions internationally, with current gallery spaces in London and Hong Kong. Matthew began working with his mother Angela Flowers in her eponymous London gallery in 1975 alongside his career in music, which included performances on The Old Grey Whistle Test and Top of the Pops. Notable board memberships have included Byam Shaw School of Art in the 1990s and DACS from 2008 to 2020. A passionate art collector, Matthew is also a competitive chess player representing the Chelsea Arts Club team and a singer-songwriter.

“Bianca Raffaella’s work is deeply personal and moving, shaped by her unique perspective as a visually impaired artist and her intuitive, physical painting process.”

Matthew Flowers

Place of Birth

London. Currently, I live and work in Margate at TKE Studios.

Education

First-class Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from Kingston University.

Awards, Accolades

TEAR residency 2023/4
Harper’s Bazaar “Three To Watch: Hotly tipped female talent on the British art scene”, November 2024

Current exhibitions

Small is Beautiful group exhibition, running from 21 November 2024 to 4 January 2025, Flowers Gallery

Spiritual guides, Mentors

Dame Tracey Emin, Elinor Renfrew

Advice

Express your challenging experiences.


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