David Petruschin (Russian: ????? ????????, born April 8, 1979), better known by his stage name Raven, is an American drag queen and make-up artist from Riverside, California. He was a fixture in the Southern California nightclub scene before gaining international prominence for appearing in both the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race and the first season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars. He placed as the runner-up on both seasons. After competing on the show, Petruschin served as a "professor" during all three seasons of RuPaul's Drag U. He has been RuPaul's makeup artist since Drag Race's ninth season and has since become a creative producer of both installments, All Stars and Drag Race. He currently co-hosts the weekly webseries "Fashion Photo Ruview" (along with fellow Drag Race alumna Raja) and is widely regarded as one of modern drag's greatest stylistic influences.
Video Raven (drag queen)
Early life
Petruschin was born in Victorville, California, U.S. as the first of five children. Although being of Russian ancestry, his mother, who separated with his father when Petruschin was seven years old, raised him a Mormon. Petruschin has since expressed disinterest in the faith.
Maps Raven (drag queen)
Career
Origins
At the beginning of his career, Petruschin worked as a cosmetics salesperson and a freelance make-up artist during the day, and at night performed in nightclubs as a go-go boy under the name Phoenix. He started performing in drag in 2002, changing his moniker to Raven. Unlike many other drag queens, Petruschin learned drag without a drag mother to act as a mentor. As Raven, Petruschin auditioned to compete on the first and second seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race.
RuPaul's Drag Race
In 2010, it was announced that Raven would be a contestant on the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race. In the first episode, he won the season's first mini-challenge, a photo shoot. In the second and third episode he landed in the bottom two, having to "lip-sync for his life" twice in order to stay in the competition. He won both lipsyncs. Raven won a second mini-challenge in the fourth episode by guessing the price of various objects, earning him a phone call home; and a third mini-challenge in the fifth episode by successfully decorating a box to reflect his personal style. He won the seventh and eighth main challenges, which involved creating and promoting an autobiography, and giving an older gentleman a makeover, respectively. At the end of the competition, he ultimately placed second behind Tyra Sanchez. His placement was highly controversial with many fans of the show feeling that Raven has been "robbed" and that he should have won instead of Sanchez.
RuPaul's Drag U
Raven was one of many Drag Race alumni who were invited to act as a drag professor in the spin-off series RuPaul's Drag U, which has screened three seasons. Raven serves as a "drag professor" and mentor to female contestants who are given make-overs. In the series, his persona is not portrayed in a villainous fashion, but instead as a softer and nurturing mentor. Raven has so far made a total of twelve appearances and has collected the most wins during the series' run, being dubbed the "Makeover Queen".
RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars
On 6 August 2012, it was announced that Raven was one of twelve past Drag Race contestants selected to join the cast of RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars that premiered on the Logo network on 22 October 2012. Prior to the airing of the season finale, Raven (along with All Stars contestants Manila Luzon, Latrice Royale, and Tammie Brown) appeared in a television commercial for travel website Orbitz's new portal for LGBT leisure travel. He was paired with contestant and best friend Jujubee to form Team Rujubee. They won the mini-challenges in the second and fifth episode by correctly answering questions about each other in the style of The Newlywed Game and by scoring more points in a game of basketball, which won them a call to their loved ones. The duo managed to make it to the finals, which aired on 26 November 2012, where Raven again landed as a runner-up to winner Chad Michaels. This time even more controversies arose around his placement, with many accusing RuPaul of creating All Stars only in order to crown Chad Michaels, after he just lost in the finale of the fourth season. Many refer to Raven as the "Queen of Runner-Ups".
Make-up artist
Petruschin returned to Drag Race as RuPaul's make-up artist for Season 9. For his work he received a nomination for the 2018 Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards in the category "Television and New Media Series: Best Contemporary Makeup". Aside from doing RuPaul's make-up since 2017, he has served as a creative producer for All Stars since its third season and for Drag Race since its tenth.
Other appearances
Featured in a commercial promoting the syndication run of the cable television series Nip/Tuck on the Logo network, Raven lip synced to the theme song "A Perfect Lie" as he caresses a syringe close to his lips. The commercial is based on one of his past drag performances. He also has made a guest appearance in an episode of Logo's reality series, Pretty Hurts, which documents the life and career of celebrity medical aesthetician Rand Rusher. Raven was also featured on an episode of America's Next Top Model, Cycle 8, in which he participated in a photo shoot with each of the show's contestants in male drag and paired with a drag queen. Raven made a cameo in the 2011 music video for "Diamond Crowned Queen" by RuPaul's Drag Race season three winner Raja. His cameo was praised by critics, who named him the "magnificent Raven". In 2012, along with other RuPaul's Drag Race contestants, he appeared in another music video, "Queen" by Mimi Imfurst's band Xelle. He also starred in the music video "Feed Me Diamonds" by MNDR.
In spring 2014, Raven and Raja started a weekly YouTube fashion critique show on World of Wonder's channel called "RuPaul's Drag Race Fashion Photo RuView", where they "toot" or "boot" fashion from mostly Drag Race alumni. Every episode gets viewed between 400.000 and one million times. He has appeared on multiple other WOW shows as well. Besides international touring, Raven currently hosts several drag-related events at gay clubs throughout Southern California.
Impact on drag
Raven has been consistently credited as being the most influential make-up artist within the drag community. He originated several innovative contour techniques, including a dramatically pinched nose with a bright dot on the tip (an "exclamation point") and a particular style of severely carved cheekbones. He also popularized his signature overdrawn and nude-colored lips, his detailed eye make-up, the use of contact lenses, a false beauty mark and the use of natural makeup colors, the latter being a practice which had previously been eschewed by drag performers.
Raven's influence is so severe that many seasoned drag queens, such as RuPaul's Drag Race season six winner Bianca Del Rio, state that especially young drag queens all use Raven's style. In 2016, Raven was included as an inspiration in Vanity Fair's "100 Years of Drag Fashion" video, alongside iconic drag performers Divine, David Bowie, and RuPaul. The video presented his style as the epitome of 2000s-era drag. Raven is the drag mother of season eight runner-up Naomi Smalls. He won the "Best Lips AKA The Pucker Up Award" at the first WOWie Awards in 2017.
Filmography
Television
Web
References
External links
- Make Up Work! with Raven series
- David Petruschin on IMDb
- David Raven Petruschin on Facebook
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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