PRISCILA SOARES is an artist with severe to profound hearing loss who uses her art to create inclusive spaces for children and adults who are hard of hearing. Her paintings, sculptures and mixed media art feature people and characters with hearing differences who use various hearing assistive technologies.
Imagine Rapunzel with a cochlear implant, Peter Pan wearing hearing aids, Snow White using sign language, and Alice in Wonderland with a bone-anchored hearing aid.
These are just some of the characters from 13 loved children’s books that artist Ms Priscila Soares has beautifully transformed in original artworks to become inclusive characters that use hearing assistive technologies.
There’s also Mowgli from the Jungle Book, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Winnie the Pooh, The Princess and the Frog, The Little Prince, The Wizard of Oz, and The Princess and the Pea.
Soares has painted each with four variations of hearing technology so every child’s favourite fairytale figure can wear the same device as them – or not – in the case of signing.
Poster prints of her paintings grace the walls of audiology clinics, ENT surgeons’ practices, children’s hospitals and schools worldwide along with the private homes of parents who proudly decorate their children’s bedrooms with the pieces.
Living in the world of hearing loss is what inspired the Brazilian-born Californian artist to create accessible paintings that uplift those with hearing differences.
“I’ve been doing my best to help people with hearing differences feel seen and represented,” Soares says. “The artwork is for all people with hearing differences and the professionals who cater to them.”
The fairytale characters are among hundreds of paintings Soares has done of people with hearing differences. She takes commissions and creates customised paintings of people with hearing loss, including adults, bringing their powerful stories to life and showcasing their passion or hobby.
“I love my work, and it brings me joy,” she adds. “I give some of my characters wings on their ears to give a visibility to an invisible disability. I let them fly.
“Through my art I want to show that having a disability such as a hearing loss doesn’t disempower you, instead it gives you a unique way of experiencing the world around you, and that realisation can be extremely transformative.”
Art as therapy
Art has, in fact, become her therapy and is her voice but it wasn’t always this way after facing many struggles accepting her hearing difference.
Soares’ hearing loss journey started as a teenager in São Paulo, Brazil, when she developed mild hearing loss in her right ear from cholesteatoma. The hearing loss progressed, and surgery inadvertently caused complete deafness in that ear.
She moved to America and started work in the motion picture industry while attending university. A few years later cholesteatoma also developed in her left ear, she believes from childhood infections. Although the surgery corroded the ear bones in the left ear, she could wear bone-anchored hearing aids which enabled her to hear out of her left ear.
Later, the youngest of her two sons, Jason, was born with bilateral hearing loss unrelated to hers. He received cochlear implants at age three and qualified for a teaching aide to help him at school along with many other forms of assistance.
Soares, who has severe hearing loss in the left ear and profound in the right, had not sought help for herself. Her son’s experience made her realise there was a lot of help and support for children with hearing loss, but perhaps not as much for adults. “I was feeling a bit lost; I tried meditation to find a truer version of myself and began to learn to just trust and let go. I started journalling, then began creating art,” she recalls.
“I gave myself a goal of completing one piece of artwork a week over 12 weeks. I shared them online and people with similar experiences began to reach out to let me know how they felt seen through my art. I began asking them to send me their stories so I could represent them as well.”
She has illustrated three children’s book so far and in 2024 had her first solo exhibition. “Aside from the local community, I invited some audiologists and people with hearing differences,” Soares says.
“They were so chuffed and said I was the only one doing this, portraying people and characters with hearing differences in a positive way through art. “They said there was a real need for this, it was crucial and important.”
Patients told her they wished they had seen artwork like hers in audiology and ENT surgeons’ clinics, instead of sterile rooms where they felt lost.
“They said there was a lack of representation of our community of people with hearing differences on walls. I am here to remedy that,” she says.
Soares is open to requests from the profession such as more representation of elderly people and veterans, she adds.
She attends hearing care, audiology and otolaryngology conferences to promote her work at trade exhibitions and does talks about the importance of art on the walls and shelves of medical environments. She recently exhibited her works in Australia for the first time at the Audiology Australia 2025 Conference in Adelaide where she received a standing ovation during her talk and a warm response from delegates.
Validating for children
Conference delegate, paediatric audiologist Ms Brooke Rose was impressed and bought two pieces. Rose, a cochlear implant recipient and the First Sounds Implant Program surgical lead at The Shepherd Centre, said she had never seen artwork like it before.
“I’ve shown a few parents and audiologists Priscila’s site, and everyone has loved her art,” she says.
“The beauty of art is that it is a unique reflection of the world we live in. “Being reflected by art and media is incredibly validating and sends children the message that they do belong and that they are seen and valued just the way they are.
“I loved the artwork I bought – the Beauty and the Beast one for myself and the Christopher Robin one for my best friend’s son who is hearing but I thought the cochlear implant would remind him of his Aunty Brooke seeing he lives in another state, and I don’t see him as much as I’d like.”
Rose said Beauty and the Beast was her favourite Disney movie – she even has a tattoo of Belle and the Beast.
“I love Belle with her cochlear implant – it makes me so happy to see deaf people represented in art and media,” she says.
“I have my Belle picture at home in my office where I can enjoy it. I work travelling around to different hospitals and surgeons’ rooms, so my home office is my home base. I like that it means that I can see it all the time too, not just when I’m working.
“One child saw it in the background when I was on video camera, so I brought it over for them to see – the child and their parents loved it.”
Soares adds: “My artwork celebrates people with hearing differences – hearing aids, cochlear implants, bone-anchored hearing systems – and the vibrant communities around them.
“It’s about creating moments of representation, joy, and connection for kids, parents, audiologists, and advocates who don’t often see themselves reflected in creative spaces.
“In the hearing health space, it’s about bringing more inclusive, empowering visuals to the clinic, office, events, or outreach.”
People can view her gallery of artwork and other merchandise at myluckyears.com and priscilasoares.com.
