Raquel Blazquez

Raquel Blazquez is a self-taught figurative painter and artist exploring the human subconscious, emotions, trauma, and connections.

Her paintings are a direct expression of her inner world, and through them, she processes her own emotions and trauma. Her mission is to raise conversations about the unspoken topics of mental health, inviting us to accept our full range of emotions as they are.

Her last collection ‘Stories from the past’ explores Raquel’s own childhood trauma and conditioning, and the effect the past has in our beliefs and emotions in the present. The piece ‘Crumbling walls’ examined how rejection from our peers and family while growing up, causes defense mechanisms to arise, creates a wall, the objective of which is to protect us. But with time, this wall, this false persona, ends being restrictive. In order to heal, we need to reconnect with who we trully are, and there’s a need to overcome this fear of rejection. On another hand, the piece ‘Silenced’ explores the very prevalent feeling of being unable to express fully, to say no, particularly in women, and how this can led to sexual trauma.

Her process starts with abstract colourful backgrounds created through intuitive play, using mainly acrylic paint and spray paint. Portraits are over-imposed using oil paint. Colour is used as a carrier of emotions and loose brushstrokes as a representation of movement and continuous change within the individual and as a collective.