Kazimira Rachfal - The Shiva Cycle
March 23 - April 22, 2012
Janet Kurnatowski Gallery is pleased to present Kazimira Rachfal's third solo exhibition The Shiva Cycle from March 23 - April 22, 2012. There will be an opening reception on Friday, March 23 from 7-9pm.
In The Shiva Cycle, Kazimira Rachfal gives voice to the inexpressible nature of inner emotive experience. Her elegant and subtle oil paintings offer a proposition of value, one that runs counter to the instantly apparent and commodifying demands of a 'society of the spectacle'. The modest scale of these works combined with her use of color, line, texture and form convey an austerity imbued with sensuous warmth and mysterious light. The paintings boldly demand self-reflection, stillness and patience from the viewer. Rachfal not only engages but also restores forgotten aspects of the Modernist tradition.
Still, Rachfal's influences exceed the narrowness of the Modernist canon. She has a deep appreciation for outsider art - the sophisticated, geometric quilts of Gee's Bend, a Southern Women's collective - as well as the classical art of her homeland - Poland's, Black Madonna - both represent creative points of reference. Rachfal's process even mirrors the iconography of the Black Madonna, as she cradles her works in her hand while painting them with thin veils of color, layer upon layer - the paintings reference the sacred space of the cathedral through her use of the painted line as architectonic framing device.
Rachfal's works begin where language ends and bring to mind a world without things, highlighting the hidden but omnipresent energy that lies completely within yet ostensibly beyond us all. For more information or images please contact the gallery.
In The Shiva Cycle, Kazimira Rachfal gives voice to the inexpressible nature of inner emotive experience. Her elegant and subtle oil paintings offer a proposition of value, one that runs counter to the instantly apparent and commodifying demands of a 'society of the spectacle'. The modest scale of these works combined with her use of color, line, texture and form convey an austerity imbued with sensuous warmth and mysterious light. The paintings boldly demand self-reflection, stillness and patience from the viewer. Rachfal not only engages but also restores forgotten aspects of the Modernist tradition.
Still, Rachfal's influences exceed the narrowness of the Modernist canon. She has a deep appreciation for outsider art - the sophisticated, geometric quilts of Gee's Bend, a Southern Women's collective - as well as the classical art of her homeland - Poland's, Black Madonna - both represent creative points of reference. Rachfal's process even mirrors the iconography of the Black Madonna, as she cradles her works in her hand while painting them with thin veils of color, layer upon layer - the paintings reference the sacred space of the cathedral through her use of the painted line as architectonic framing device.
Rachfal's works begin where language ends and bring to mind a world without things, highlighting the hidden but omnipresent energy that lies completely within yet ostensibly beyond us all. For more information or images please contact the gallery.