About Raquel Du Toit (aka Ixtel)
MFA recipient at Pratt Institute, Raquel Du Toit is a Mexican American artist who works within multiple disciplines exhibiting work in London, New York and Mexico. She was a fellow at the Vermont Studio Center and went to Pacific Lutheran University for Photography . Before moving to New York, she collaborated with other artists in London and Seattle to create a non-profit named “What is Art” in which performance, sound, new media art forms were challenged, experienced and expanded in new ways. Raquel continues to create interactive sculptures, performances, video and installations in order to remove the white walls of the galleries within her work. She is currently a recipient of the NYFA Fellowship for Emerging Leaders in the Arts and continues to curate, create, and cultivate work nationally and internationally. She is the co founder of Luxury Blight, a curatorial, production company that creates spaces in which artist can project video, create sound and incorporate performance art.
“ARTIST STATEMENT:
As a Mexican American artist I live between two countries. One that produces; and the other that consumes. Analyzing labor markets, corporate infrastructures and media I find connections that tie both nations together. Trained in photography, video, performance art, and sculpture, I use survey-oriented methods that symbolically or conceptually link materials and ideas to a variety of projects. Through this process, videos and images emerge as a comical narrative; exploring, analyzing and questioning my duo heritage.
Using found and discarded items as sculptural elements to reflect on mass consumerism, they become props for my performances. During my performances and videos I use repetition, voice, and irony to create reflections on labor. In my photography I personify found arrangements, document general stores that are going out of business and working on an ongoing ironic documentation of what I like to call “America oh America.””