Raquel Baldocchi

Raquel Baldocchi Biography

Raquel Baldocchi is a mixed-media painter born and raised in San Francisco, CA. She grew up and attended school in the city, and spent summers, holidays, and weekends on her family's ranch in San Juan Bautista, CA. Her mother's family, fourth-generation ranchers from Salinas, helped shape her strong sense of bonding, heritage, and family ties. Her father's parents were Italian and Salvadoran immigrants, from whom she draws a strong identity of culture, language, and art. 

   Raquel identified as an artist from early childhood, always observing, drawing, and making things by hand. Her father was an industrial/graphic designer and painter. His tools of the trade were always in use and on display in his workroom in the home and served as inspiration to her artistic sensibilities. In both primary and secondary school, Raquel took advantage of every art-making opportunity available to her. After graduating from art school with a BFA in Printmaking, she pursued a variety of professional endeavors in the arts including graphic design, Fine Arts education, and handmade ceramic tile mural design.

Raquel Baldocchi Statement

Engaging with a work of art can be a transcendent experience when one is standing in front of a painting, or listening to music, or watching a film.  
The creative process  can have a similar otherworldly  effect on me, when all of the elements ultimately meld into a finished piece.   

I  paint on  panel with acrylic mixed media , incorporating layers of pigment, glue, paper and drawing material. Working with a variety of materials enables me to create pieces with rich contrasts and subtleties.  I refer to the human figure and animal forms as a source of endless visual interest.

My current work seeks to present characters from suggestive distant eras and locales set into a modern, abstract construct.  I draw inspiration from historical portraits, vintage photographs, family memorabilia.  My great aunt made numerous scrapbooks filled with charming images of flora, fauna, and illustrations of all types of human interaction, which often influence the content of my paintings. I am continually drawn to stories and images of incidents, both real and imagined, that move me to recreate a sense of their wonder in my work.