Prafulla was born in Goa. She had her training at the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai, where she won the Gold Medal for the best work of 1955, the year she obtained her diploma. She held individual shows regularly and won a Silver Medal at the Bombay Art Society Portrait Exhibition. The government of France awarded her a scholarship for the study of graphic art at Ecole de Beaux Arts and Atelier 17 in Paris for a year. While in Paris she held an exhibition of her paintings in 1961 and has since then participated in exhibitions in Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Japan and France.

Prafulla's abstracts are buoyant and luminescent. Line, color and volume create meditative expanses for the viewer. The minimalist works reflect the artist's perspective of nature and man. The palette knife excavates the pigment; the roller pulls it in multi-layered, expanding bands. The multiple levels/ bands are also suggestive of the various planes of emotional experience. The work bears the imprint of spontaneity and energy reflecting the spirit of the artist. She has held several exhibitions in India and her paintings are in the collections of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, the Central Museum, Nagpur, and the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, as well as many institutional and private collections.