AMERICAN ARTIST RAPHAELLA VAISSEAU WATERCOLOR AND MIXED MEDIA( INK)
AMERICAN ARTIST RAPHAELLA VAISSEAU WATERCOLOR AND MIXED MEDIA( INK)
for more than 20 years Raphaella’ s
medium was exclusively watercolor. Through her technique, watercolor lends itself nicely to the vibrant layering effects of color upon color which have become a trademark of her museum quality, high-end artwork. Raphaella’ s larger, more intricate watercolors often take years to complete. Her fine-art portfolio is archived with the Modern Folk Art Museum in New York City and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D. C.
In July of 2004, Raphaella added acrylic paintings on canvas to her repertoire, experiencing them as bold, brilliant, and free expressions of color. Acrylics and watercolor, together with her fusion of words and art on her magnets, posters, and quotes, make for three distinct styles of artistic expression that define Raphaella Vaisseau.
The common thread that ties them all together is a mastery of color.“ I interpret the beauty of life, and share my love of the natural world( and all living things) in abstract expressions of color and form. It’ s as if I were looking through a crystal portal from another dimension, a dimension where color exists as an end in itself and thereby is a vehicle for transformation. Color bathes us in beauty, blesses and heals. Like beautiful music, color can lift our spirits to touch the divine.” Echoes of her Norwegian cultural heritage, a love
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of Rosemaling, and an early fascination with Impressionism are evident in her early paintings as well as the art surrounding words on her magnets, posters, and quotes. A leap into the unknown characterizes her new abstract expressions of acrylic on canvas.
Early in her painting career, Raphaella made a commitment to follow her heart rather than her mind or any other external source for confirmation of what is. She keenly senses completion of a painting as if a pitch were suddenly in tune or a pendulum has stopped above its center. All of her painting is a meditation of breathing in and breathing out, letting go and letting God, with her focus on being a vessel for light and her heart’ s expression.
For Raphaella, the presence of heart in Heartful Art speaks to this devotion and to her belief that“ in our hearts we are one heart”. Although her subject matter includes flowers, symbols, abstracts, people, and other living things, she does have a following of collectors of her painted hearts. Raphaella believes“ a painting of a heart can remind us to focus in on our own hearts, to listen and trust our own inner guidance above all things”.
Born in 1947 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Raphaella now paints and creates in her Heartful Art studios in Miami, Florida.