Leda’s Secret

Raffaella Picotti is an Italian artist born in Rome, where she was immersed in history and art from an early age. Her creative journey is deeply entwined with personal and familial experiences of mental illness, which have shaped her vision with emotional intensity. Through her paintings, she seeks a soul-to-soul connection; a poetic passage between beauty and wound. Her work gives voice to the unspoken, reminding us that light persists even in the most fragile places.

Raffaella moves between coloured pencil, acrylic, and oil, blending a mystical realism inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites, the Flemish masters, and chiaroscuro traditions. She currently lives in Australia, where she continues her path between memory, nature, and inner truth.

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Leda is my inner mirror - the delicate threshold between power and surrender.
In this painting, I wanted to explore the hidden feminine, the one the patriarchy turned into guilt or seduction.The swan is not conquest, but a masculine archetype that bends and accompanies.The flowers blooming from its feathers are memories of body, blood, and silence. I paint to reclaim what has been forgotten.