Kazimira Rachfal, ananta, 2012, 16 x 16 inches, oil on canvas
In her third solo exhibition at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery (through April 22), Kazimira Rachfal presents a group of spare and deeply evocative paintings. The ten new works in the show are all very small scale and are installed with plenty of space around them, heightening the compressed presence and intimacy of each piece. Employing an iconic motif -- a rectangle with a slightly curved angular top, contained in varying ratios by a solid field and the edges of the canvas -- the artist explores the nuances of proportion, touch and color. The surfaces vary from impasto to thin veils of oil, arrived at through a long slow intuitive layering process that leaves traces of each previous action. These paintings are both intensely sensual and eloquently understated. There is a quietness to this work, a sort of splendid stillness that conjures ancient connections to ontological mysteries -- each work an embodiment of a series of essential transformative encounters.
Kazimira Rachfal, the lightness of being, 2011, 10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas
Kazimira Rachfal, over the misty breakers, 2011, 24 x 18 inches, oil on canvas
Kazimira Rachfal, as under a green sea, 2011, 10 x 8 inches, oil on canvas
Kazimira Rachfal, the myth of approach, 2011, 17 x 13.25 inches, oil on canvas
Kazimira Rachfal, the lovely goddess launched him, 2011, 5 x 7 inches, oil on canvas
Kazimira Rachfal, climbing the bronze sky, 2011, 26 x 28.25 inches, oil on canvas
Kazimira Rachfal, this night at last, 2010, 8 x 6 inches, oil on canvas
Kazimira Rachfal, the symmetries of translation in space, 2011, 20 x 12 inches, oil on canvas
