Gabrielle Raaff

(b 1970, South Africa. Lives and works in Cape Town)

Raaff's works begin with a photographic image as a springboard. The medium of photography; and its ability to fix an image; is what piques her interest. Raaff translates this into works using ink; watercolour and water-based oil as a vehicle for alluding to the form; function and emotion of her ethereal subjects. Thematically; Raaff is interested in the space and arrangement of local South African neighbourhoods; and the everyday goings on of the people who inhabit them. Some works revel in the semi-abstract qualities of some vistas; while more recent works play out in a more intimate; painterly relationship with the subject.