Lorraine Rastorfer has the extraordinary ability to manipulate light, colour and pattern. Her reflective surfaces, metallic presence and authoritative brushstrokes create an ambiguous depiction of space, which is both allusive and illusionary.

Rastorfer’s abstract paintings ripple like luminescent airborne currents, subtle shifts in the thread like patterns building to rhythmic crescendos. She utilizes texture, pattern and the notion of repetition to deceive the eye, skilfully layering and scraping back her surfaces until they posses an inner glow.

Rastorfer’s paintings interrogate the spaces between, intertwining elements of the formally abstract with the natural and emotional. “In places the pattern is softly punctured with tears, these smouldering cavities create a tension between the formal and the emotional.” (1)

“I am interested in atmospheres, the invisible ones we move around in everyday and the ones that paintings create.” (2) Colour, pattern, composition and the role of title as narrative foster an emotional response. The bronze and black multidirectional weave of “Turbo” for instance, evokes the speed, heat and chaos of a desert wind, while the pearly pink and white threaded lines in “Heavens Breath” gently undulate calling to mind the tranquil scent of spring blossom.

With strong associations to Japanese aesthetics, Rastorfer’s paintings are refined and restrained, combining simple yet complex compositions. Dense lines are combed and overlaid across the surface, glistening in subtle mother of pearl hues of pinks, reds, blues, and bronze referencing silk oriental fabrics or Japanese Zen gardens.

1. Dr Richard Bullen & Margaret Duncan, Judges Comments, 2005 CoCA / Anthony
Harper Award.
2. Lorraine Rastorfer, Artist statement, 2006.