Raeesah Islam

Raeesah has grown up as a first generation American from a Muslim-Bengali family. She is the youngest of five children and the only daughter to Anwar and Sani Islam. Raeesah became interested in the arts at age 3 when she would watch her grandmother create beautiful portraits through both paint and stitch. She went onto developing through various gifted art programs including The Governor's School for the Arts in Norfolk, VA from 2007-2011. After graduating high school, she moved to the UK on an whim to study Fashion Design and Marketing at The London College of Fashion- University of the Arts London. She grew with the culture for three years finding that she was more interested in branding than design. Not too long after returning to the states, Raeesah fell into a deep illness which resulted in meningitis due to complications with the autoimmune disorder she was born with. This illness served as a catalyst to the rebirth of her artist passions and directed her focus on living a life she always wanted. Throughout adolescence, she imagined building a non-profit charity to benefit the village which her father grew up in Feni, Bangladesh. In 2015, at the age of 22, she founded the 501(c)3 nonprofit Utopia Feni. Utopia Feni is an art gallery + lifestyle brand based in Virginia Beach, VA. Raeesah solidified her knowledge of the nonprofit world by completing nonprofit leadership courses through The University of Notre Dame- Mendoza College of Business. Her mission is to sustain a local creative community in order to benefit establishing an arts program in Feni. She has a strong passion for branding and hopes to make a difference with her work for the community.