Artist Spotlight: Fatinha Ramos — Finding Light, Identity & Creative Freedom Through Art

We’re thrilled to shine a spotlight on Fatinha Ramos, a visionary illustrator whose deeply personal and moving work has been featured this month by MoMA in their Drawn to MoMA series. Her latest project revisits Frida Kahlo’s iconic 1937 work, Fulang-Chang and I, and transforms it into a powerful visual narrative of identity, disability, and the healing force of creativity.

A Story Rooted in Parallels — Yet Uniquely Her Own

From a young age, Fatinha’s life bore uncanny similarities to Frida Kahlo’s — long hospital stays, spinal surgeries, medical braces, and even a shared family connection to portrait photography. These parallels led others to call her “the Portuguese Frida Kahlo,” long before she understood who Frida truly was.

But this comparison, once limiting, evolved into something liberating.

Fatinha reflects:

“I didn’t want to be a version of someone else. I wanted to be fully myself.”

In this new MoMA project, Fatinha steps through the mirror within Kahlo’s painting to create a series of 16 illustrations that explore both artists’ lived experiences — not as mirrors of one another, but as two distinct voices in conversation across time.

Reclaiming the Narrative of Disability & Creativity

While the visual dialogue with Frida is moving, Fatinha’s work brings forward an equally important message:

Art made by people with disabilities should not be romanticized as resilience despite limitation — but celebrated for the way creativity emerges through it.

As Fatinha beautifully states:

“Creativity does not happen despite limitations but through them. Art should broaden how we see the world—and that includes how we see bodies, too.”

Her illustrations lean into vulnerability, strength, and the intimate spaces where pain and imagination coexist — offering a new way of seeing both the artist and the body as sources of truth, beauty, and transformation.

A Meeting of Stories, Full of Light

This project marks an emotional milestone for Fatinha:

“I’ve been compared to Frida for as long as I can remember, and now, finally, our stories meet. Frida’s story once shadowed mine; now it lights the way.”

Her MoMA feature doesn’t merge her story with Frida’s — it honors both. It celebrates how one artist’s experience can inspire another to reclaim her voice, identity, and artistic purpose.

Celebrating Fatinha’s Vision

We’re incredibly proud to celebrate Fatinha’s work here at the Directory of Illustration — not only for this milestone collaboration with MoMA, but for the empathy, honesty, and breathtaking artistry she brings to every project.

Her story reminds us of the profound truth at the heart of creative work: Art does more than express who we are — it shapes who we become.