Artist Profile: Isma Rafiq
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Isma Rafiq is an artist and illustrator based in Yorkshire. Trained at the London College of Fashion (UAL), with a foundation in Fine Art, Textiles, and Photography, she spent years working at the heart of the fashion industry — most notably at Burberry — before returning to her art practice.
Her signature portrait series features boldly styled women with hooded eyes and unhurried expressions: fashion illustration with a soul. There is something of Tim Burton in her sensibility — a love of the theatrical, the slightly otherworldly, the figure that exists just outside the ordinary. It runs through everything she makes.
Her work does not stay in one world. Underwater Love plunges into the depths with colour-saturated sea life — vivid, joyful, and unapologetically alive — a testament to her lifelong fascination with the ocean. Equally transportive is her My-jorelle Blues cacti collection, born from a visit to the legendary Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech. The collection's luminous blue — that unmistakable, almost electric pigment — is not approximated. It is personally sourced from the garden itself, carried back and worked directly into the canvas.
In 2024 she independently curated Palestine Unveiled, a group exhibition that drew artists and audiences from across the globe.
She does not explain her women. Neither do they.
Artwork price range: £400 – £1,100