Bio
Born and adopted from Cuenca, Ecuador, Raquel is an emerging artist from Biddeford, Maine. She is focused on using her art as a mode of expression and developing a visual language of her own. From painting to drawing, her work is focused on the confrontations and expressions of identity, experiences, and emotions. She received a BA in English with minors in Studio Art and Spanish from the University of Southern Maine in 2017. She was the recipient of a 2022 BIPOC Fellowship at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and in 2023 was awarded a residency at SPACE Gallery’s Residency Room in Portland, Maine. Her work has been displayed online, in New York at Collarworks (Troy), Deanna Evans Projects (NYC), and primarily throughout Southern Maine at the Harlow, the Buoy Gallery, New System Exhibitions, and Engine.
Artist Statement
I am longing to communicate through my work and longing for my work to communicate with me. I want to unearth the unexpressed, relive memories, and explore dreams–piecing together experience and my own identity. Through intuitive mark making and color, I guide myself towards a point of articulation as images, themes, and marks begin to create a visual language of my own. My work explores mark making as a sign of my hand and record of my own existence. I am interested in the images and marks that emerge again and again, deciphering their meaning and tendencies of behavior, becoming familiar with them until they are no longer something to fear, but something that provides comfort and healing.