It’s impossible to stand in front of a Rafaella Portella painting without feeling that
something in it is alive—a quiet, almost mineral pulse born from the merging of body
and landscape. Her works feel like open windows into a place where rivers meet the
skin, the moon rests on branches, and the invisible reveals itself in the curves of color.
Born in Rio de Janeiro and now living in Miami, Rafaella carries, with every brushstroke,
the memory of the cities and forests that shaped her. At 16 she moved to the United
States, studied at Miami Arts Charter High School, and later honed her craft at the
Barcelona Academy of Art in Spain. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Barry
University in 2025, and since then has been building a body of work that blends
techniques and cultures, yet always keeps a heart deeply rooted in the nature of Brazil.
On the surface of the canvas, Rafaella paints as if she were listening. Layers of paint—
oil, acrylic, sometimes watercolor—seem to follow their own rhythm, guided more by
intuition than by any strict method. There’s a sense of flow in the way color spreads: a
liquid gesture that welcomes the unexpected, allowing images to appear as if they
had always been there, simply waiting for a gaze that could uncover them.
In her work, nature isn’t just a backdrop. It’s a presence, a mirror, a heartbeat. In every
female figure that blends with roots or every lunar sphere hovering over an abstract
horizon, there’s a silent dialogue between human beings and the planet. This fusion
doesn’t try to explain—it invites you to feel, and to recognize yourself in it.
This is where her work meets the Amazon. Not as a descriptive landscape, but as a
state of being. The forest in her paintings becomes a living metaphor: water that
transforms everything, cycles that insist on renewal, exuberance intertwined with
fragility. It’s a reminder that, just like the forest, we too carry underground rivers, inner
moons, and trees that learn to bend with the wind.