About the Artist
 Throughout her life, Andrea Raft has found herself drawn to art and to the expressiveness it offers her. In her work, she is most responsive to the deceptive simplicity of the natural world itself, finding in its complex textures and earthy hues the mood for her own canvasses. Her work reveals her preference for the abstract, choosing to evoke an impression or feeling rather than depict representational images. In addition to the lessons of nature, Raft is inspired by such painters as Paul Cézanne, Anselm Kiefer, and Mark Rothko. Her travels to India, China, Nepal and Tibet have enriched her abiding interest in Asian art and Eastern philosophy. Andrea contends that her work is as much a spiritual exercise as an act of creation, as much a meditation as an expression. When she paints, she hopes to share the gift of quiet introspection born of the tumult of creativity with those who will contemplate her canvasses.
The inextricable blend of Nature's spirit and artist's prayer is conveyed in Andrea Raft's mix media pieces through oils and acrylics, often interspersed with found objects, rocks, metals, and photographs. Most striking about Raft's canvasses, however, are the references to Eastern cultures that infuse her work. Taken together, the Asian symbols and textiles that denote so many of Raft's pieces tell a rich story about history, about philosophy, and about art: an intricate narrative interwoven with Nature's own.
Andrea Raft first studied painting at the Brentwood Art Center in Los Angeles, where under its auspices, she traveled to Giglio, Italy, to study and paint. It was in Giglio that Andrea developed her interest in layered colors and texture. The walls, doors, and streets of the 11th century walled city inspired her to paint in overlapping layers, with the old under girding the new. Subsequently, Raft spent six years in the Bahamas, where she was tutored by her proximity to the sea and by the unhurried pace of life around her, more recently in the countryside of California's central coast, and now residing in the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains. Each shift--from ancient to modern, from urban to rural, from land to sea, from west to east--has enriched Andrea's artistic perceptions, enabling her to study, paint, and show her work professionally in a host of disparate environments.
|
|
