Ilaria trained as an illustrator in Italy, then started working as a fine artist after moving to London in 1999. Her work has been selected for the BP Portrait Award, the Threadneedle Prize, the Lynn Painters Stainers Prize, the New English Art Club and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition. She shows regularly in galleries in UK, France, Italy and US, and her paintings are in private collections in several European countries as well as in the US and in Hong Kong.