BAGIRA is a 29-year-old self-taught artist, painter, designer, muralist, graphic designer, gallery owner, and mother.

Born in the Netherlands to an Algerian father and Hungarian mother, the artist grew up in several countries like Hungary, Algeria, Belgium and the Netherlands before moving to curacao in December 2014.

Living on her own since she was 15 years old, without finishing school or receiving any help from her parents, she has always been driven by big goals, believing that ‘it’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do about it.’

At the age of 19, she moved to curacao to live with her older sister and started as a waitress in a restaurant. A year later, while working at an accounting firm as sales agent, she discovered her talent at the age of 21 by painting with eyeshadow on the wall in her room. After receiving a custom order for a painting from a friend, she quit her job 2 weeks later to start her career and has been living off her art ever since, painting portraits, murals and for many years gave private painting classes. However for the first 5 years of her career she was only making commission pieces, and during the pandemic broadened her horizon and started creating paintings to sell. 

BAGIRA is now known as an established artist and was voted as #1 Best artist of Curacao of 2024. She is known for her murals and captivating portraits and abstracts. Her work can be seen around the island, in many restaurants, hotels, beaches, around the city, private homes, government buildings like at the Ministry of Justice and even painted the entire interior of biggest local bank MCB. Being self-taught, she experiments with different styles and color palettes but many still recognize her work.

The artist never participated in exhibitions; she worked mostly on a commission basis, and other works would sell through social media. She also prefers to keep her work separate from that of other artists. In 2023, the opportunity arose to open her own studio/atelier in Kura Hulanda, but within a few months, she outgrew the space and decided to open ‘The Gallery’ in march 2024 by renovating a storage space that now became Curacao’s most modern art gallery where she also exhibit’s other artists works during solo expos.

Her paintings, which began on this small island, now hanging in homes around the globe, from Europe and the USA to Canada, New Zealand, Spain, Norway, and other islands.