Raquel Vila Arisa (Manlleu 1989) has lived in the Azores since 2015. She graduated in Art and Design in Barcelona, where she specialized in illustration. While still in education, she studied painting and animation in Riga, Latvia. During her academic career, she was part of the artistic collective “Morir de Frío” from 2011 to 2019, dedicated to promoting contemporary culture in Catalonia through art criticism articles, exhibition curating, lectures, workshops, and a radio program. In 2015, she arrived on Faial Island to intern as a graphic designer and illustrator at the Fazendo Cultural Association. In the same year, she was invited to exhibit her work in Terceira and illustrated her first published book. After also exhibiting her work in Pico and Faial, in 2018 the artist decided to create Lapa Brava, her pseudonym, to distinguish her more personal style and work as an artist and creative from other graphic and illustration work done in parallel. Using stencils, Indian ink, and watercolors, Lapa Brava's illustrations are inspired by Azorean life and culture, without leaving behind the artist's relationship and vision of the world. Themes such as inclusion and feminism, present in her work, led the artist to assert her more activist side with the founding of the feminist collective Sem Capotes, created in Faial in 2023.