Lorraine Rastorfer
  • Home Page Slide Show
  • Available Paintings
    • Mobile Art - Auckland
    • Art Associates - Auckland
    • Paintings in homes and workplaces
    • Commissions & Themes
  • A Painting History
    • 2023 'Wayfarer', Rice Pudding Gallery
    • 2018 - 2022 various small works
    • 2017 'Transference' Pataka Art + Museum
    • 2016 'Ardour ' Milford Gallery
    • 2015 'Retrospektiv', Pataka, 'Wanderlust', Orexart
    • 2014 Parkin and NCAW award
    • 2013 'Vanitas', Milford Gallery
    • 2012 'Flora' works
    • 2011 'Deluge' Milford Gallery
    • 2010 'Zwischen', Mark Hutchins Gallery
    • 2009 'Zeigen', Milford Gallery
    • 2008 'Himmel' Mark Hutchins Gallery
    • 2007 'Conversations' Dowse Art Museum
    • 2005 & 2006 'Airborne', Milford Gallery
  • Bio & CV
    • Dowse Catalogue Essay by Jacquie Clarke
    • Art NZ Essay by Becky Hemus
  • News
  • Contact
  • Home Page Slide Show
  • Available Paintings
    • Mobile Art - Auckland
    • Art Associates - Auckland
    • Paintings in homes and workplaces
    • Commissions & Themes
  • A Painting History
    • 2023 'Wayfarer', Rice Pudding Gallery
    • 2018 - 2022 various small works
    • 2017 'Transference' Pataka Art + Museum
    • 2016 'Ardour ' Milford Gallery
    • 2015 'Retrospektiv', Pataka, 'Wanderlust', Orexart
    • 2014 Parkin and NCAW award
    • 2013 'Vanitas', Milford Gallery
    • 2012 'Flora' works
    • 2011 'Deluge' Milford Gallery
    • 2010 'Zwischen', Mark Hutchins Gallery
    • 2009 'Zeigen', Milford Gallery
    • 2008 'Himmel' Mark Hutchins Gallery
    • 2007 'Conversations' Dowse Art Museum
    • 2005 & 2006 'Airborne', Milford Gallery
  • Bio & CV
    • Dowse Catalogue Essay by Jacquie Clarke
    • Art NZ Essay by Becky Hemus
  • News
  • Contact

Artist Statement - Ardour

10/16/2015

1 Comment

 


My work is all about gesture; a physical trace of movement through space, motion to express thought, embodied marks set in time.     

Each individual work has a history of 10 or more completed works until the lines and their movements synchronise into some kind of intuited whole. I work with the fluidity, viscosity, opacity and transparency of paint, a variety of mark-making tools that I have designed myself and the effects of chance, control and an overall conceptual intent. I keep going until a find a spatial balance; a sense of ordered freedom, a unified variety of rhythms and streams.    

I have considered using gold since my years in Japan and the way it was traditionally used to great effect to create mysterious illumination from shadowy alcoves in homes. These works are intended to be seen in rooms where changing light conditions fire up the work and make the calligraphic strokes blaze.  The gold under-painting is intended to add an intensity to ideas about interactivity, a catching of light when moving past the work, a light that follows the viewer.

Energy, passion, fervour, intensity, ardour. These are the ideas that have fueled this work in order to materialize and fix an unfolding event.
Picture
1 Comment

Work on New Work

10/15/2015

0 Comments

 

Milford Galleries have published a catalogue for the exhibition.  What a superb Gallery support they are.

Ok, so I ended up scrapping everything I had shown in the previous blog and made some ruthless decisions about the look of the show. I decided that all the work would be on a base of gold with a flat earthy dense mottled matt colour over it. At first I thought silver and gold and then I thought just gold, as it's so lovely and warm, and fitted the overall concept of 'Ardour ' better than steely silver.

Ardour noun
1. passion, feeling, fire, heat, spirit, intensity, warmth, devotion, fervour, vehemence, fierceness
2. enthusiasm, zeal, eagerness, earnestness, keenness, avidity

I work 'wet in wet', so once its dry the work is finished, I can no longer move things around. So I have several goes at inscribing gestures and work out where I want a work to go. Sometimes I rework a work 20 times and I photograph the versions along the way. It's a horrible moment in reflection when I look at the images and see that actually I have destroyed a  a work that had 'something' special. I cannot ever reproduce the gestures in the same way, and I ususually start pretty wild, refining and extracting as I go.

With this series they all had to have a different visual gestural unpinning idea: falling, throwing, growth, energy, 3d space, locks of hair, fire, weeds, supple-jack, ribbons, knotted trees, ikebana, grass and  agapanthus leaves.

I'm really excited about how interactive the gold makes the work. I varnished over the gold so its not a gaudy gold but more straw gold, very shiny and it picks up the light and moves it over the gestures when you look at the work. It blazes in a really dramatic way with changing light conditions in a domestic setting and goes quiet at night under electric lights.

The matt paints I use are so dense, rich and velvety. The downside is they are really sensitive to greasy fingers and scuffs so this painting has to be handled very carefully, and that's always a worry. Many artists I admire who use similar materials have work cordoned off as painting generally often longs to be touched.


Picture
This work called 'Supernova' is a work for my collection from the series. I need to be with this work and have a domestic, daily conversation, engage with the variance of light and colour, a long term critique project that will determine what I do next.
0 Comments

    Hi
    ​I'm a New Zealand based artist musing about my painting practice and sometimes life in general.   


    Archives

    February 2023
    December 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    March 2022
    August 2020
    May 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    July 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    September 2014
    October 2013
    August 2012

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Austria
    Contemporary Abstract Painting
    New Zealand Artist
    Painting Practice

  ⓒ Lorraine Rastorfer 2022 

  • Home Page Slide Show
  • Available Paintings
    • Mobile Art - Auckland
    • Art Associates - Auckland
    • Paintings in homes and workplaces
    • Commissions & Themes
  • A Painting History
    • 2023 'Wayfarer', Rice Pudding Gallery
    • 2018 - 2022 various small works
    • 2017 'Transference' Pataka Art + Museum
    • 2016 'Ardour ' Milford Gallery
    • 2015 'Retrospektiv', Pataka, 'Wanderlust', Orexart
    • 2014 Parkin and NCAW award
    • 2013 'Vanitas', Milford Gallery
    • 2012 'Flora' works
    • 2011 'Deluge' Milford Gallery
    • 2010 'Zwischen', Mark Hutchins Gallery
    • 2009 'Zeigen', Milford Gallery
    • 2008 'Himmel' Mark Hutchins Gallery
    • 2007 'Conversations' Dowse Art Museum
    • 2005 & 2006 'Airborne', Milford Gallery
  • Bio & CV
    • Dowse Catalogue Essay by Jacquie Clarke
    • Art NZ Essay by Becky Hemus
  • News
  • Contact