Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Mixed Media, Digital Work, Photography, Video, Performance and Installation----FROM LATE 2006 TO NOW----WORK BY MIKAELA RAQUEL
ARTIST STATEMENT
I’m interested in creating elusive sci-fi environments and narrative images dealing with metaphysical issues such as the nature of existence, parallelism, god, space, time and identity. My work ranges in photographs, sculptural props for the photographs, performances, video work, painting and drawings. My work is heavily influenced by surrealism, metaphysics, science-fiction cinema and mixed media. Another influence is the NASA Space Shuttle Program in Titusville, Florida, where my mother still works today.
Self-portraiture and personal symbolism is one way I use to investigate these ideas. I often will emphasize the hand-made object in opposition to the machine-made, high-tech object.
The action of projection along with the hand-made object could perhaps illuminate a strange dialogue about pseudoscience, futuristic imagery, craft and a certain level of camp, the kind associated with old, low budget sci-fi fantasy flicks.