Lorraine Rastorfer creates a flux of rhythm and motion in her abstract paintings by integrating texture with pattern and using repetition, reflective surface, metallic presence and authoritative brushstroke. She interrogates the spaces between, intertwining elements of the formally abstract with the natural and emotional. Her paintings ripple like luminescent airborne currents, subtle shifts in the patterns build to rhythmic crescendos.

Expertly manipulated light, colour and pattern create a resonating atmosphere. The viewer contemplates realms of the implied, the real and the imaginary.

I am interested in atmospheres, the invisible ones we move around in everyday and the ones that paintings create.’ (1)

There is a parallel between Rastorfer’s simple yet complex compositions and Japanese aesthetics. Carefully combed and interwoven ribbons of paint evoke the contemplative atmosphere of the Japanese Zen Garden. Underlying subtle metallic reds, blues, pinks and bronze shimmer through thread-like patterns suggesting delicate silken oriental textiles.

Colour, pattern, composition and the role of title as narrative foster an emotional response. The bronze and black multidirectional weave of Turbo (2005) for instance, evokes the speed, heat and chaos of a desert wind. In Sender (2006) the play of receding and advancing colour creates an optical illusion in which circular marks appear to assume different shapes.

1. Artist statement, 2006.