about raoul
Raoul Pacheco was born on a military base in Wiesbaden, Germany in 1972. He moved frequently living in such European cities as Amsterdam, Stuttgart, and Brussels while also bouncing back and forth between southern towns such as Homestead, FL, Warner Robins, GA and Myrtle Beach SC.
He found himself settling down long enough to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Augusta State University in 1999. Raoul spent the next years teaching Middle school and High school art at Augusta Preparatory Day school as well as art organizations such as the Gertrude Herbert Art Institute, Art Factory and the Artscape camp sponsored by the Greater Augusta Arts Council.
Pacheco ventured west and in 2006 Raoul completed his master’s degree in ceramics from the California College of Arts in San Francisco, California. He has since returned back to Augusta where he is currently a Assistant Professor at Georgia Regents University.
Raoul’s work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. in such prestigious galleries such as Mary Pauline Gallery in Augusta GA, Hang Art Gallery in San Francisco, CA and Boontling Gallery in Oakland, CA. His work is also currently housed in many collections around the globe in such cities as St Petersburg, Russia, Reykjavik, Iceland, Amsterdam, Holland and Los Angeles and San Francisco California.
He found himself settling down long enough to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Augusta State University in 1999. Raoul spent the next years teaching Middle school and High school art at Augusta Preparatory Day school as well as art organizations such as the Gertrude Herbert Art Institute, Art Factory and the Artscape camp sponsored by the Greater Augusta Arts Council.
Pacheco ventured west and in 2006 Raoul completed his master’s degree in ceramics from the California College of Arts in San Francisco, California. He has since returned back to Augusta where he is currently a Assistant Professor at Georgia Regents University.
Raoul’s work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. in such prestigious galleries such as Mary Pauline Gallery in Augusta GA, Hang Art Gallery in San Francisco, CA and Boontling Gallery in Oakland, CA. His work is also currently housed in many collections around the globe in such cities as St Petersburg, Russia, Reykjavik, Iceland, Amsterdam, Holland and Los Angeles and San Francisco California.
Artist Statement
My work is sparked by early experience and observation. Memory, personal history, a state of witness to my surroundings, the exciting pursuit of finding the perfect fragment or forgotten object to incorporate into my practice is a crucial part of the process. A stream of association is set in motion by combining two-dimensional works with three-dimensional sculptures. I utilize a system of codependence and interdependence to create dialogues between image and object. This approach allows me to consider a broad scope of ideas, both personal and social. As an art maker I tend to remain open to where my work comes from, allowing my everyday and past to offer me gifts that I can then deconstruct and reconstruct as well as modify memories through my own filters. Ultimately I am concerned with what it means to be a human being.
My projects incorporate wheel thrown ceramics, altered, constructed and manifested as a usually no more than knee-high figure known as Ott. In addition, Ott reappears on extracted, appropriated and recontextualized pages of outdated school texts, thrift store children’s books and used coloring books. The materials I utilize have a clear purpose, a purpose, that presents situations in which Ott is the device, the container, the protagonists that translates the human condition into a sense of make believe and fiction, a language of cartoons as well as a highly personal narrative that offers no clear conclusions. For me, outdated and used books combined with chalkboard paint, white out and other non-traditional materials speak to socialization tools as well as forgotten history and information. For instance, a used coloring book page becomes a collaboration of made and subsisting materials, materials that have meaning for me, materials that had meaning for the child who previously owned it. I tend to gravitate towards the discarded and forgotten. It is here that the work allows the materials its possibilities to embody something that has been redeemed. It is here that the work can create a tension between what is real and the illusory. This approach to making allows me to create work that is interrelated and at the same time unique and accepting of a crude aesthetic, work that is unrefined and raw in form. The work conjures a sense of introspection and creates a sinister yet silly murmur that reverberates through an entire space. Ott is moody and at times despairingly isolated with its aloneness. Ott allows me to transform spaces into a psychologically charged visual idiom, a chapter of a continuous story that entices viewers to relate and become involved with the pieces.