Her paintings of stems and flowers, made by ‘seeing’ them through touch, give a unique perception of the world. She explains why she gave up a career in fashion to paint seriously, landing a place at Tracey Emin’s foundation

Bianca Raffaella is showing me the huge canvases she has painted for her debut solo show Faint Memories when a strange realisation hits me. I can see these beautiful depictions of petals and stems in their full, widescreen splendour – and she can’t.

The 32-year-old was born with congenital toxoplasmosis and is registered blind: her vision is largely limited to her left eye, through which she can only see things closer than a metre and for brief moments of time. “When I back away from a painting, I never see it in full,” says Raffaella. “I work really close, and I will see things for a fraction of a second and then it’s lost.”