Raúl Vega
Biography
Raúl Vega attended Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California and the University of Florence, Italy majoring in Architecture. After college, Raúl quickly turned to photography. His award-winning photographs have appeared, often as covers, in such magazines as Time, Esquire, Andy Warhol’s Interview, the New Yorker, the New York Times, Glamour, Vogue and Vanity Fair, among many others. His portrait of Carl Sagan was selected to be part of a special exhibit: “Forces of Nature: Voices that Shaped Environmentalism” for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. Raúl has shown work at the Annenberg Space for Photography and co-curated photography exhibitions at the Leica Gallery.
Raúl teaches Photography classes at Otis College of Art & Design and for the Los Angeles Dept. of Cultural Affairs. He also teaches photography to specialty high school students.
Raúl's fine art abstractions reflect a personal growth rooted in a traditional, photographic representation of reality. Recently, he was the winner of "Future of Art Global Masterpiece Award", "Voices of Tommorw" award by Contemporary Art Curator Magazine, Masterful Mind Award - Artist of the year by Circle Foundation for the Arts. He has exhibited in London, Venice, Italy and Paris.
Artist Statement
I expect a certain amount of randomness in my process. I never quite know how a picture will turn out because each image has a life of its own. Though rooted in a traditional photographic representation of reality, the images, when combined with other elements such as Architecture, cultural iconography, color, texture, scale and the mundane allow for a new visual language which flips back and forth between the rigors of representation and the liberating ambiguity of abstraction. My work deals with the rainbow of randomness and chaos that is part of our daily lives.
palimpsest 6, 2026, photography, 76.2 cm x 101.6 cm
phola, 2026, photography, 101.6 cm x 76.2 cm
I could, 2026, photography, 101.6 cm x 76.2 cm
love yours, 2026, photography, 76.2 cm x 101.6 cm
jelstage, 2026, photography, 76.2 cm x 101.6 cm
palimpsest 3, 2025, photography, 101.6 cm x 76.2 cm2
palimpsest 1, 2025, photography, 76.2 cm x 101.6 cm
ovefome, 2025, photography, 76.2 cm x 101.6 cm
shades of winter, 2025, photography, 76.2 cm x 101.6 cm
untitled flaw, 2025, photography, 76.2 cm x 101.6 cm