b. 1995
Born and adopted from Cuenca, Ecuador, Raquel is an artist living and working from Biddeford, Maine. Through painting, she is interested in unearthing the unexpressed and revealing what cannot be seen–exploring emotions, memory, grief and dreams. She was the recipient of a 2022 BIPOC Fellowship at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. In 2023, she was an artist in residence at SPACE Gallery in Portland, ME, and the recipient of the David C. Driskell Fellowship and Residency at Black Seed Studio. She shows her work online and throughout New England.
“Created while in residency at Indigo Arts Alliance as a David C. Driskell Fellow, the works I have chosen to include are the beginning of an exploration in painted fabric. In the ways I love the tactility and intimacy of works on paper, I am discovering the ephemeral qualities of fabric, as well as the ways the fabric paintings feel intimate and familiar, even at a larger scale. I am embracing frayed edges, the soaking blend of paint in the linen fibers, and the movement of these surfaces as I view them.”
Q. If you could offer your younger self any advice at the start of your artistic career, what would it be?”
A. “Don’t give up. Keep your work sacred. Share your work, but remember that your relationship with you art is the most important.”