ABOUT AMANDA RAQUEL ART
The Background
Amanda Raquel (she/they) graduated from the fine arts department at The Ontario College of Art and Design in the early 2000's. Only recently has she been able to pursue her art with creative freedom and produce a body of work.
With my current work I hope to bring the audience through my personal exploration as a mixed Filipino Person living in the diaspora. I open the conversations surrounding anxiety and depression rooted in Western culture and invite the viewer to shift perspective along with me. This work hopes to present to the viewer the position where spirit exists in all things which surround us - natural or otherwise - each of which has as much a role in the whole as each human does. My work asserts the enormity and importance of the world outside our human selves, and encourages the audience to understand themselves as a part of a much broader realm of existence, as I seek to uncover it for myself.
ARTIST STATEMENT
With my current work I hope to bring the audience through my personal exploration as a mixed Filipino Person living in the diaspora. I open the conversations surrounding anxiety and depression rooted in Western culture and invite the viewer to shift perspective along with me. This work hopes to present to the viewer the position where spirit exists in all the artifacts which surround us - natural or otherwise - each of which has as much a role in the whole as each human does. My work asserts the enormity and importance of the world outside our human selves, and encourages the audience to understand themselves as a part of a much broader realm of existence, as I seek to uncover it for myself.
These ideas are presented in my works through the use of methods and material, the blending of techniques across traditional and non-traditional art making. I use transparencies and colour to create the ephemeral qualities within the image; and often handmade papers are included. While Fine Arts are the technical foundation of my current body of works, the techniques I’ve established in other creative endeavors over the years form the features. This technical evolution mirrors the development of perspective from the conventional western viewpoint to a intersectional, less clearly delineated or described whole-world perspective.