El Arcangel Gabriel

Raul is a self-taught, Queer Latinx visual artist with muscular dystrophy. Born in Mexicali, Mexico, the third of four siblings, Raul and his family migrated to Southern California - the place that reared him and became home after the age of three. He grew up in the City of Pomona, a short stroll to Pomona’s Artist District.

Raul’s professional work bridges diverse themes and spans over 25 years; each piece of art emerges from his experience at the intersection of disability, lgbtq identity, race & ethnicity, family & community. Raul believes art needs to be reclaimed by our communities and embraced by the formal art world.

Among his proudest achievements is Raul’s residency with Self-Help Graphics Los Angeles. Raul worked with a master printmaker to produce several prints of “Sharia” and half became part of various Latinx collections at museums and universities nationally. Raul was also one of artists invited to participate in the singular Los Angeles’ Community of Angels project, and this year, Raul was featured in “Preserving Creative Spaces”, a traveling collection of 50 photographs of artists and their studios that will become part of the Smithosonian archives. 

The dA Center for the Arts was the first gallery to exhibit Raul’s work, and in Dec 2019 hosted his first retrospective which encompassed over 70 pieces including his first painting completed at the age of three, which is when art became Raul’s preferred lenguaje.