Deluge
Solo Exhibition
Milford Galleries
Dunedin
2011
Solo Exhibition
Milford Galleries
Dunedin
2011
In ‘Deluge’, Lorraine Rastorfer investigates the role of water and liquidity both as an element and in the physical creation of a painting. Moving on from her previous examination of air as a shaping force, the works in ‘Deluge’ are flooded with pearlescent paint. Rastorfer determines the overall process but allows serendipity to direct where pigment pools and settles. The marks left behind create a ‘map of ebbing and flowing’ (1) and reveal the painterly process behind the making of each work.
While emphasis on the medium is obvious in a work such as ‘Sluice’, the marks created by Rastorfer’s technique also create tonal depths that advance and recede. Delicate webs of texture are enhanced by the play of light and dark within and across the work, creating an atmospheric landscape, albeit one that we are aware has been altered from its original state.
Rastorfer invites the viewer to consider not only the process of her work, but to also think about the layering and manipulation of surfaces. The lustre possessed by these latest works is more than a rich surface or a decorative facade; Rastorfer wants us to feel what lies beneath, behind and between her subtle layers and organic forms.
For more information please see Milford Galleries Catalogue, click here
http://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/arts/158957/art-seen
Review of "Deluge", in Otago Daily Times:
Two seemingly disparate exhibitions on show at the Milford both in their own way produce feelings of somewhat uneasy calm.
Lorraine Rastorfer produces this feeling through abstract canvases using the unusual medium of pearlescent paint. Rastorfer has created patterns by randomly placing seeds, then allowing thin washes of paint to flow over and around them.
The long, streaked shadowy regions created are reminiscent of sharply side-lit Nasa images of alien worlds, or of channels left in sand by the outgoing tide.
The seeds, once removed, leave an unsettling null space which our minds seek to fill or explain. Space is important to the works, and the artist's interest in oriental art leads to the use of large open areas which allow the eye to wander across the canvas.
Like vertical Zen gardens, the pictures allow the mind to focus on individual details and to create new journeys through the art's world with every new view.
The impression is of art which, at first glance, seems minimal, but which gains new facets with repeated viewing. This aspect is compounded by the multi-hued reflections which the art gains from the medium.
With every slight shift of the light source or the viewer, new swirling patterns of soft colour emerge from the surface of the works, creating a most pleasing result.
While emphasis on the medium is obvious in a work such as ‘Sluice’, the marks created by Rastorfer’s technique also create tonal depths that advance and recede. Delicate webs of texture are enhanced by the play of light and dark within and across the work, creating an atmospheric landscape, albeit one that we are aware has been altered from its original state.
Rastorfer invites the viewer to consider not only the process of her work, but to also think about the layering and manipulation of surfaces. The lustre possessed by these latest works is more than a rich surface or a decorative facade; Rastorfer wants us to feel what lies beneath, behind and between her subtle layers and organic forms.
For more information please see Milford Galleries Catalogue, click here
http://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/arts/158957/art-seen
Review of "Deluge", in Otago Daily Times:
Two seemingly disparate exhibitions on show at the Milford both in their own way produce feelings of somewhat uneasy calm.
Lorraine Rastorfer produces this feeling through abstract canvases using the unusual medium of pearlescent paint. Rastorfer has created patterns by randomly placing seeds, then allowing thin washes of paint to flow over and around them.
The long, streaked shadowy regions created are reminiscent of sharply side-lit Nasa images of alien worlds, or of channels left in sand by the outgoing tide.
The seeds, once removed, leave an unsettling null space which our minds seek to fill or explain. Space is important to the works, and the artist's interest in oriental art leads to the use of large open areas which allow the eye to wander across the canvas.
Like vertical Zen gardens, the pictures allow the mind to focus on individual details and to create new journeys through the art's world with every new view.
The impression is of art which, at first glance, seems minimal, but which gains new facets with repeated viewing. This aspect is compounded by the multi-hued reflections which the art gains from the medium.
With every slight shift of the light source or the viewer, new swirling patterns of soft colour emerge from the surface of the works, creating a most pleasing result.
| rastorfer_deluge_catalogue.pdf |