The FIFA World Cup has always been about more than football. It is about culture, identity, movement, belonging, memory, and the stories that travel across borders alongside millions of fans. Every tournament leaves behind unforgettable goals and iconic moments, but increasingly, it also leaves behind art.
Ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Visa unveiled its first-ever Global Art Collection, commissioning more than twenty artists from six continents to create original works inspired by their home countries and the universal language of football. Rather than relying solely on traditional advertising, the company chose to celebrate creators whose visual languages reflect the places they call home, proving that artists are just as important to cultural storytelling as athletes themselves.

Among the roster are several extraordinary women artists whose practices span illustration, muralism, architecture, painting, and graphic storytelling. Their works celebrate heritage, community, movement, and imagination while offering fresh perspectives on one of the world’s biggest sporting events.

LeDania (Colombia)

If colour could dance, it might look like the work of LeDania.

The Colombian multidisciplinary artist has built an international reputation through her vibrant murals and graffiti-inspired visual language. Her work blends street art, illustration, typography, and fine art into compositions bursting with movement and optimism.

For Visa’s collection, LeDania brings the energy of Colombian culture to life through bold forms and electric palettes that mirror the joy and passion football inspires across Latin America. Her practice demonstrates how public art can become both celebration and cultural preservation.

Nori Okawa (Japan)

Experimental Japanese artist Nori Okawa approaches illustration with fearless curiosity.

Her work fuses contemporary graphic design with traditional Japanese influences, creating compositions that feel fragmented, kinetic, and alive. Layers of geometry and expressive forms collide to produce imagery that feels simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic.

Her contribution to the Visa collection reflects Japan’s visual culture through an energetic artistic language that feels unmistakably her own.

Katarzyna Bogucka (Poland)

Polish illustrator Katarzyna Bogucka has built a career that effortlessly moves between children’s books, murals, editorial illustration, logos, and large-scale public artworks. Her visual language is instantly recognizable: bold shapes, expressive colour palettes, and playful compositions that balance simplicity with sophisticated design.

Her illustrations often celebrate everyday life through humour and movement, transforming ordinary moments into vibrant visual stories. This ability to blend accessibility with artistic depth has made her one of Poland’s most celebrated contemporary illustrators.

For Visa’s FIFA World Cup 26 Global Art Collection, Bogucka brings her signature optimism and graphic sensibility to a project that celebrates football as a shared cultural experience. Her work reminds us that illustration has the power to transcend language, capturing the joy, energy, and collective spirit that make the beautiful game universal.

Karabo Poppy (South Africa)

Few illustrators have become as synonymous with contemporary African visual culture as Karabo Poppy.

Inspired by both traditional and contemporary African design, the South African illustrator creates bold, geometric compositions that celebrate community, identity, and everyday life. Her work has appeared on global collaborations with brands and institutions while remaining deeply rooted in local visual traditions.

For the Visa collection, Karabo brings a distinctly African perspective to football’s global story, reminding audiences that creativity flourishes through cultural authenticity rather than uniformity.

Bayan Yasien (Saudi Arabia)

The work of Bayan Yasien feels deeply emotional and poetic.

Through luminous colours and symbolic imagery, the Saudi artist explores memory, belonging, heritage, and transformation. Her paintings often feel like conversations between past and present, reflecting a rapidly evolving cultural landscape while honouring longstanding traditions.

Her contribution to the Visa collection offers a visual love letter to Saudi Arabia and demonstrates the role artists play in documenting national identity through contemporary expression.

Wiam Azhar (Morocco)

Originally trained as an architect, Wiam Azhar found painting as a form of personal freedom and storytelling.

The self-taught Moroccan artist creates figurative works inspired by everyday life, weaving together nostalgia, architecture, colour, and cultural symbolism. Her compositions often resemble vibrant frescoes filled with intimate moments that evoke collective memory.

Her artistic practice beautifully illustrates how observation and place can become powerful creative tools, making her a fitting contributor to a project centred on national identity and cultural pride.

Alice Piaggio (Italy)

Italian illustrator Alice Piaggio combines fine art training with a refined sense of narrative composition.

Raised in the coastal village of Bogliasco and educated in both Fine Arts and Graphic Design, her work balances delicate imagery with thoughtful storytelling. There is a quiet elegance to her illustrations that allows emotion and atmosphere to emerge naturally from each composition.

Her inclusion in the collection reinforces the idea that illustration can capture the feeling of a place just as effectively as photography or film.

When Brands Choose Artists, Everyone Wins

Visa’s Global Art Collection feels significant not simply because it celebrates football, but because it celebrates the people who shape culture behind the scenes.

By commissioning illustrators and visual artists from around the world, the project acknowledges that creativity is an economic force, a cultural archive, and a universal language. It offers artists an international platform while inviting audiences to experience football through colour, symbolism, and storytelling rather than statistics alone.

For women creatives everywhere, projects like this are a reminder that illustration, muralism, painting, and design belong on the world’s biggest stages.

Sometimes the road to the World Cup isn’t painted in white lines across a pitch.

Sometimes it’s painted on a wall, a canvas, or a sketchbook by a woman whose imagination carries the spirit of an entire nation.

All images are gotten from the Visa Website.