RAVEN PAJARILLAGA
‘One time for the area.’ (Image: Raven Pajarillaga (@ra7en)
Self-taught artist Raven Pajarillaga is Blacktown’s modern-day answer to Basquiat. Working across oil paints, pastels, and spray paints, Raven’s paintings breathe like a trippy fever dream, melting senses and experiences together into otherworldly collages of colour. From the clutter and clamour of bars and suburbia, to loose portraitures and abnormal silhouettes, each work is more surreal than the next. In an exclusive video interview with videographer Liam Patrick and Herbert Leota (whose film work has been previously nominated for Blacktown Shorts Film Festival), Raven discloses more details about his Marayong life behind the brushes.
Art had always lived in the Pajarillaga bloodline. Raven explains he was born into a family of painters. ‘My mum and my grandpa […] were both painters,’ he says. ‘She always used to make me paint - I hated it.’ However, years of support and encouragement from his mother has motivated him into producing the repertoire of works he has today on Instagram.
Raven is inspired by the classics - from Frida Kahlo and Salvador Dali, to Vincent Van Gogh, and Francis Bacon. He is also moved by the most arbitrary experiences - from dreams and conversations, to public observations. In terms of subject matter, however, Raven works intuitively, motivated by what cannot be expressed into words.
His painting Western Sydney Lullaby epitomises this, a visual love letter encapsulating the ‘beautiful, unapologetic, bloodthirsty and sometimes painful reality of life’ in Western Sydney. Oil paints and pastels express motifs that are familiar to Australian suburbia, such as Nike TNs, VB Longnecks, and bent cigarettes. On the same canvas, we also see contours of incomplete faces - on leaves, colour blocks, and hazy figures. The silhouette of strangers are also deeply reminiscent of post-impressionists Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso, reflecting people that are not quite familiar, yet not too foreign either.
Western Sydney Lullaby (Image: Raven Pajarillaga (@ra7en)
Western Sydney is a recurring theme across Raven’s works too. After moving into the Greater West at ten-years-old, he experienced his own ‘culture shock’ of moving into a suburb where ‘everybody’s Filo’. In another work posted on his Instagram, he pays homage to Marayong station at night, drenched in rich notes of blues and violets. Dark silhouettes reappear in this work, this time hooded and practically faceless. The only hints of warmth we see are from the yellow street lights and windows lit up from the skewed buildings, and the loud orange sign with ‘Marayong’ printed across.
‘LEAVE YA POSTCODE IN THE COMMENTS’ he writes in the caption, donning his fluro tradie jacket and mismatched TNs as he holds his work on display. ‘LET A BRUVVA KNOW WHERE YA FROM. REP THAT SH*T WESTERN SYDNEY.’ The post, currently topped with over 200 likes, is flooded with plenty of postcodes and praise.
Although Raven had always shown off his works online, none of his paintings have not been exhibited in the public eye. However, he is adamant on the prospects of producing his own art show in the near future. All of Raven’s works can be viewed on his Instagram page. Watch the rest of the interview below.
