Bianca Raffaella: A world of blurred vision

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0:30to make those markets work for you. Follow Merrin Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. This programme contains references to an eating disorder. I see my paintings completely differently to obviously a fully sighted person. And I'm trying to portray how I see my reality, my visual experiences. And there's something quite magical about that because it's like the secret of seeing. It's like the secret experience of my site. Welcome to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service, the programme that follows the creative journey of artists from around the world.

1:11I'm Sahar Zand, exploring the world of British artist Bianca Raffaella. Hello, my name is Bianca Raffaella and I'm a painter. My art is a reflection of my identity of being partially sighted and living in the visual world. Bianca's work is shaped by the shifting limits of her sight. Drawing from lived experience, she chooses subjects that are accessible to her, using them to express how she sees the world. Working largely through touch and memory, her paintings emerge from a landscape of blur, visual static and sensory recall. Having completed a residency under Dane Tracey Emin, her work has been widely exhibited including major solo shows and is increasingly sought after for their distinctive ethereal quality hovering between visibility and disappearance.

2:09And they're quite difficult to see for the fully sighted viewer because they're depleting, they're fragmenting, they're disappearing they're created in an instant and they're seen in an instant and somehow with my work I'm trying to encourage this idea of slowing down and appreciating the idea of an image that doesn't last forever.

2:34It's mid-September 2025, and I'm at the Women in Art Awards, held at the British Library in central London. One of the largest events of its kind, the ceremony, celebrates women artists working across disciplines, and Bianca has been shortlisted. Hi, Bianca, it's Ahaha. Oh, hi. How do you feel being here tonight? Quite overwhelmed. And obviously being able to show my work as a partially sighted female artist who's also currently pregnant, it just feels really powerful. Why is it powerful? Because I think when you're partially sighted, you're always behind a veil of inaccessibility and you're always having to fight to push yourself forward, to get to the front.

3:17And you're sitting right at the front row right now. Which is quite nice. What would it mean if you won tonight? I highly doubt it. Why? I mean, it would be amazing. But there's a hell of a little competition. There's a hell of a lot of incredible artists behind me. Who are you up against? Well, I'm not entirely sure who I'm up against. Because I don't view the world like everybody who's visually able to, I feel so separate to that. And I don't rely on it. How do you see their work? I guess I see it in a kind of pixelated... It's like through another 50 lenses of fractured light. And without further ado, shall we begin?

3:58Awards are presented across a range of categories, from sculpture and painting to photography and print. Though best known as a painter, Bianca has recently begun working with printmaking, the category she's entered tonight. Bianca, I think your award is coming up. I still feel it's extremely unlikely. So tonight I'm truly delighted and honoured to award the printmaking prize to Bianca Raffia.

4:29Bianca's husband helps her five weeks from her due date up onto the stage to collect her printmaking prize. But before the night is over, there is one final award still to come. The overall Women in Arts prize, selected from hundreds of nominees. It's been particularly challenging to single out one woman for the overall prize. But there is one artist whose work rose to the top. It is my great pleasure to announce that the overall winner of the Women in Art Prize 2025 is Bianca Raffaella. It's ridiculous. With Bianca collecting the final and biggest award of the night, the ceremony draws to a close.

5:14Oh my goodness, thank you so much. Out in the foyer, as people crowd around Bianca, I managed to steal a moment with her. Seriously? No, I still don't believe it. I'm just going to let it sink in. I don't know whether it's just like holding the awards, but I feel like I have got this tremendous amount of almost responsibility. I'm really hoping it can bridge some barriers and bring a lot more awareness. Why does that matter to you so much? Because it's something I've always struggled with myself. I've always struggled to break down doors and just be equal in society. Having a disability always means that you are slightly down the ranking.

5:52Can we get winners' reaction with you? Yes, as well. And with that, I leave Bianca to it. Three weeks after the awards, I'm heading to London's South Bank to meet Bianca at the Art Academy Gallery. Winning the overall Women in Arts Prize has earned her a solo exhibition here, opening in five months. Hi, I'm great. Hi, Bianca, how are you? Oh, the baby bump is really showing. How long left do you have? Basically two weeks, yeah. And you're doing all this hustle right before giving birth. I'm going to paint right up until the end. Oh my gosh. So what are you doing here today? So just viewing the space and seeing how it might work with my work on the walls.

6:35How are you able to view this space? How are you able to get a sense of what it looks like, what you want it to look like? because it's all very visual, isn't it? If you're partially sighted, you obviously view it and it's more about sound. It's got almost like a lovely sort of soft echoing space. I suppose the walls are interchangeable so you can make that sound different for any show. As Bianca's saying, one of the great things about this space is that it has amazing natural light because we've got glass on two sides of it. Sue Spall, the Art Academy's Director of Programmes, is guiding Bianca through the space.

7:11But also that we're looking directly out onto Tate Mordham, so it's literally 100 metres that way. So that's fantastic. And we were saying, weren't we, Bianca, that sometimes when you bring the work into the space... What talks for you, it decides where it wants to go. How many pieces of work do you think you're going to be exhibiting here? I'm not entirely sure yet. I've ordered a variety of different sizes, just to get an idea of... After I've had the baby and after the caesarean, I'm not quite sure, like my flexibility of physically being able to move around. But I think that's part of the work and it's also, you know, it links to the whole creation of the painting.

7:51Bianca has decided that her pregnancy will shape this new body of work, a series that will trace the final weeks before birth and the first few months of motherhood. it's the real experience the lived experience of being a mum who's partially sighted and also just had a baby so I think this is a huge kind of entity that I'm about to go into but there's so much potential for inspiration and things that I will have never experienced before so that's got to be documented and doing it in the immediacy of it I think and there's something very immediate about the work you make anyway, isn't there? Yeah, absolutely.

8:30Because of the way you work. It feels like it's very intuitive, but it also makes it absolutely unique, I think. Alongside the paintings, Bianca is also thinking carefully about access. I'm hoping to also have an audio guide so you can walk through the space. There'll be a QR code. You can listen to an overall description of the work and the ideas behind the exhibition. Also, I'm hoping to make some tactile works to go alongside. By tactile works, she means small three-dimensional pieces, physical interpretations of the paintings, designed to be handled, allowing visitors to also experience the work through touch.

9:13The 3D pieces are important for the point of view for people who want to come into the space and obviously can't visually see the work. And then obviously thinking about how to present those alongside the paintings. I've got lots of ideas and I've just got to get going in there. It's almost like the frustration of, just need to get going. It's that little matter of having to have a baby before. I know.

9:38With Bianca's due date less than two weeks away, time is tight. The day after viewing the gallery space, I meet her at her studio in Hoxton, East London, where she's about to begin the first painting in this new series. Hang on, I think I know what's wrong. She's already preparing with her husband and business partner, James. Sorry, we just used the wrong jessay. James, do you often help Bianca with her work? Only under strict instructions. Typically, James stretches the canvases on aluminium stretcher bars and we use beautiful linen. So I've got several canvases on the wall, they're quite large.

10:22How big are those? 150 by 120. So I've gone for something that I feel has got enough scale to be filled, but also I've got the empty spaces, which I barely cover because those elements are not seen. I don't see them to cover them. But before Bianca gets started, I ask her to help me better understand what she calls her layers of vision, what and how she actually sees. So the right eye sees virtually nothing. The left eye has got a little bit more, so I've got some peripheral sight around the edges, and the centre of my vision is broken up and constantly in motion. So the eyes can't fix and focus on a point, can't see the details.

11:06It's quite complicated, sorry. It's this unique visual world that's reflected in Bianca's paintings. And to begin this one, the first stage is mixing paint for the background. So I'm going to mix a few colours just to make a base. So these are all acrylic-based paints. We've got inks with the little dropping pipettes. Then we've got thicker tube paints. Then we've got sort of like, it's almost like a creamy consistency. And I quite like using different consistency of paints when I'm mixing. What are you doing now? I'm just putting out some pure white, titanium white. So now you have very rich pink.

11:53This is a very rich pink, which I think I squeezed a bit too much. Sometimes you squeeze out a little bit too much. It's one of the things you don't see very well. You're not quite sure how much you're squeezing out. So you want to just take dabs. So I'm just taking a few dabs of that richer colour. and I'm pulling it into the lighter white tones. This is why I have so many paper plates because sometimes you just need to keep mixing it until you're happy. I'm also adding in a few pipettes of a silver. Why have you decided to go for this colour? I really love to have a lightish base. It's a very soft undertone and it complements the linen just so beautifully.

12:44It really makes the painting on top hum when you've got this sort of very soft, delicate hue that's almost, will become invisible. So I've got this lovely pigment and now I'm going to get some water. I just think it's nice to have a loose base to work with. With a bucket of water in front of her, Bianca loads a sponge with the paint she's mixed, diluting it before applying it to the canvas. The reason why I love to water down a light colour is you can start to apply layer after layer. And with that the painting begins. Now it's going to get dirty so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to loosen up this gorgeous layer so it's just very freely getting a layer onto the canvas.

13:39so I use a sponge to get to the maximum surface because I just think it allows you to get quite bold marks quite quickly really it almost becomes translucent you're just sort of dancing around the canvas you're not being too precious at this being too precious anyway is never good I think I think you just want to be free and feel the paint as if you're moulding it in your hand. You want to cover as much surface area. Whoopsie, I've lost a sponge. Do you want me to go, please? Yes, please. You see, it does get wet. I did warn you. Why did you decide to go with a canvas that has a darker tone? Because this one is kind of brown.

14:29Yeah, linen is brown. It's kind of like an oaty colour. I like the contrast, and I like working in there, you can use a lot more, well, lighter pigments. And the world that I see is quite bright. I mean, I see it a lot, there's a lot of light interference with the way that I see, so it doesn't make sense. Painting any other way. You're already starting to see a lot of these really nice shapes and layers emerging. Yeah. It's almost like drapery. I feel so out of breath. It's just ridiculous. There was a lot of big movements. There was a lot of big movements.

15:11I've spent the last three decades trying to better understand money across the boardroom, the newsroom and the trading floor. That's longer than most podcast hosts have been alive. But even though I've got questions, join me, Merrin's Upset Web, every week for my show Merrin Talks Money from Bloomberg Podcasts, where I have in-depth conversations with fund managers, strategists and experts about how markets really work. And join me for a separate episode where I answer listener questions on how to make those markets work for you. Follow Merintalk's Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

15:44This is the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service. I'm Sahar Zand, following the partially cited British artist Bianca Raffaella as she prepares for a major solo exhibition rooted in her experience of pregnancy and early motherhood. About an hour into work on the background of the painting, Bianca takes a short break and explains she's never known any other way of seeing. So I was born with congenital toxoplasmosis, which is a parasite that my mum contracted during her pregnancy and I ended up very, very sick when I was born. and my eyes were unfortunately extremely damaged. From birth, she was registered as blight.

16:34My mum was sort of, she was made to believe that I would never be able to see anything and they didn't really know what I was going to be able to do. Until one sentence from a consultant changed how Bianca's family viewed what might be possible. He said, see what she can see, not what she can't see. and it stayed with our family like some kind of mantra, I tell you. That phrase came to shape the path Bianca took from an early age. I chose a route that I felt familiar because my mum was an artist, or is an artist, and I wanted to just be like my mummy, quite simply. And she always encouraged me to paint and to draw.

17:17Even the things that I felt limited to see, I was still exploring what I could. And the rest of it that I couldn't access, I would imagine. After the short break, Bianca turns back to the painting to continue work on the figure. Now I'm doing another layer. So an interference colour. A white, but it definitely has like a pinky hue to it. Yeah, and it's got a tiny bit of grit texture to it, so it leaves a different mark on the canvas. So you're picking out some brushes. Brushes, yeah. It's nice to have a dry brush. You can see the bristly bits, and I really love having that overlay, the top of the washes.

18:05It just gives another dimension. Using a combination of brushes and her fingers, Bianco begins applying the more textured paint. I'm putting it strategically in areas where I think I'm going to start to develop the foundations of the body that's going to go on here. And obviously this is based on the female form during pregnancy. But I know loosely where the shapes would go. So I'm just going by both imagination and feeling, I suppose. The shapes suddenly came together. A pregnant lady standing. You can see almost her entire legs, the big belly, the breasts. So proportionately, I think that with my painting, is that this is often not in proportion.

18:55And I just allow myself not to fear that because I can't possibly see something anatomic. So I embrace it. How much of this do you see? More of what I remember. hence why they have to be done in a day because I wouldn't possibly be able to remember what I painted over but don't you ever get nervous or worried that you might be going over something no this is why I use thin layers because I'm not going into it too deep I'm treading quite carefully and what I'm going to do is just let this one breathe for a moment how are you feeling about where this is at right now? I enjoyed painting it and I feel like it's in its development stage.

19:40I might have a bit of tea as well. Over tea, Bianca begins to talk about another part of her life that's very much echoed in this series. I'd had anorexia for years and it had hounded my life, pretty much all of my 20s. And I'd done a fashion degree and fashion was obviously a challenge from the point of view of body dysmorphia and sizing and all those sorts of things. And I guess it sort of fed into my eating disorder. And that wasn't good. In 2016, Bianca graduated from Kingston University in London with a first-class degree in visual arts, the first registered blind student to do so. After that, I struggled for a while with trying to get into work, trying to find a job in fashion which just seemed too physically difficult, whether it was health and safety regulations or just the restrictions of not seeing.

20:34And at the time, I was really, really ill with anorexia and I'd been in hospital. But then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bianca entered a specialist therapy service called Mantra. It somehow unlocked something inside me or unblocked, let's say. It wasn't a fast process, but gradually, bit by bit, I started to replace the eating disorder with positivity and with other physical importance, which was painting. Bianca says it was art that ultimately saved her. And this body of work carries that history too, tracing the ongoing shift in her relationship with her body. With pregnancy, you just have to kind of allow yourself to, allow your body to do what it's going to do.

21:21And that's quite daunting because if you've had an eating disorder, that's the scariest thing to be presented with the physicality of the changes on the outside. So I think from that perspective, I'm thinking about how I've kind of let go a little bit and I've quite enjoyed being pregnant. And I feel like it's almost been like an achievement, which I don't know whether that's like a good thing to say. Bianca returns to the final stage of the painting. The next stage is making her almost step out of the canvas. So she's not static. She's really making a presence in the world. I'm just putting out some pure white I've got quite a white brush here just to give a little bit more gesture and also I think with a bit of dry brush you can disperse the lines a bit so you're breaking up the lines so it feels like it's just softer also I'm trying to get this murmur of the sensation of this little baby moving inside the amount of times that I've been asked is the baby moving?

22:27because it's so important. If a baby isn't moving, then there could be a problem. So it's actually really important that there is a lot of movement. To reflect what's on the canvas, Bianca moves in very close, feeling her way around the surface using touch. I'm just like memory tracing. She retraces the thicker marks with her fingertips. And it's nice to be able to get so close and intimate with it. you can really start bringing it to life. Going over the tummy. Yeah, I just want to soften that. For years I was like, I hate my tummy so much. I hate my thighs, I hate my tummy, I feel like the fattest parts of me.

23:09Like at the moment I'm like, well that's where he is and he's a little baby in there. I can't feel bad about him taking up space.

23:19That's it. I know it's finished. It's finished? Yeah. After around six hours since she began, the painting that emerges is both striking and delicate. An image that feels as though it's almost disappearing, which only makes you want to look closer before it fades away. The surface is alive with movement, in dissolving shades of pink, purple and white. Bold marks that seem to breathe, layered with thin, dripping washes that trail down the linen like milk. The image appears to vibrate, flickering in and out of focus, echoing the way Bianca has described her own vision. And yet, amid all that fading and flux, a figure begins to surface.

24:07An unmistakably pregnant woman, standing tall at the centre of the canvas, holding her belly. It feels less like an image fixed in time, and more like a moment still unfolding. when you look at this what do you see white you just see white a lot of white so when do you know it's done um not at the end of the day sometimes i will go home and i will worry immensely about a painting i'll think that painting can't exist i hate it so much it like it's knowing it's in the studio right now is bothering me this much and my world has stopped until that painting is resolved or that painting is redone or I take it off and I restretch it.

25:00What is it about paintings that don't work? Like how do you know they're not working? Sort of tracing where I've been I just don't like the information I'm getting and I don't like where I've made those marks and it just hasn't worked and I just definitively know that that cannot be how do you feel about it I'm actually really happy with her now I feel like I've captured what I really wanted to say which was about movement and about the the sensation of this growing body growing baby the changes within that and the sensation of sort of holding this this life over you know inside your tummy you can't see it yet but you can feel it and I've tried to emphasise hands and not so much the head but the tummy and the hands are my main focus in this piece and she's emerging she's not afraid to be seen I feel like she's not covering herself up she's not intimidated she's not feeling embarrassed of who she is but she's in acceptance and it's abstracted and it's the way that I imagine myself as being pregnant right now and sort of almost a feeling of kind of sadness because at some point, like in two weeks, that process of the baby being in there, they'll be on the outside.

26:26So it'll be really interesting to capture that. I haven't gone through it yet, but what I know or what I've read is that, you know, mentally it's a rollercoaster and your body then starts to produce milk to nourish and feed your baby, which is just incredible in itself. So remarkable. Have you thought of a title? I'm thinking. Can I text you it? Yeah. Between Heartbeats is the title Bianca has chosen for this painting. The first in a new body of work capturing her experience of motherhood. for the first time.

27:13You've been listening to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service. This programme was presented and produced by me, Sahar Zand. If you've been affected by issues raised in this programme, you may want to speak to a health professional or an organisation that offers support.

27:44I've spent the last three decades trying to better understand money across the boardroom, the newsroom and the trading floor. That's longer than most podcast hosts have been alive. But even though I've got questions, join me, Merrin's Upset Web, every week for my show, Merrin Talks Money from Bloomberg Podcasts, where I have in-depth conversations with fund managers, strategists and experts about how markets really work. And join me for a separate episode where I answer listener questions on how to make those markets work for you. Follow Merrin Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.