Raquel Philippe (she/her/hers) is a Boston-based painter whose work centers on the instability and reconstruction of memory. Originally from New York, Philippe draws on early lived experiences as material that is both familiar and elusive; moments that return not as linear narratives but as atmospheric impressions. Her practice approaches memory as something layered, porous, and fragmentary, shaped as much by what is forgotten as by what is retained.

 

Working primarily in vivid color palettes and translucent veils of paint, Philippe builds her images through a process of burying, uncovering, and rearticulating forms. Organic, leaf-like silhouettes move across her surfaces as recurring motifs; at times functioning as markers, at others as camouflage. These shifting shapes echo the unpredictable rhythms of recollection, where details reveal themselves only to recede again. Through this interplay of opacity and transparency, Philippe visualizes the ways personal history is continuously rewritten, reframed, and replayed.

 

Her interest in memory is grounded in a broader investigation into perception and the psychological architecture of image-making. Philippe’s recent paintings explore how sensory impressions and emotional residues become visual structures, how formative experiences sediment into color, gesture, and atmosphere. She often works through multiple layers, allowing earlier marks to haunt the composition and influence later decisions, creating a dynamic negotiation between past and present.

 

Philippe holds a BFA in Fine Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she first began to explore the relationship between internal experience and external form. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Painting at Boston University, expanding her research into narrative fragmentation, the embodied nature of recollection, and the poetics of visual memory. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions across academic and independent venues, and she continues to develop a studio practice committed to examining the mutable spaces between seeing, remembering, and imagining.