Kyla Zoe Rafert

We were instantly attracted to the distinctively detailed work of Kyla Zoe Rafert. This talented painter and printmaker (the black and white image is a plate etching!) creates narratives fueled by nostalgia, personal growth, and beauty.

Kyla Rafert is based out of Ohio, south of Columbus. When she isn’t busy creating art, she is raising her two children, in addition to tending a variety of animals and a garden. Rafert received her B.F.A. in printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design, and her M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she also studied printmaking on a full scholarship. She has attended several residencies, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Women's Studio Workshop, ACRE, and New York Mills Arts Retreat.

She explains her work further:

I see my current work as the truth bent to perfection. Set within a meticulously designed world of vanity, beauty, and abundant pattern, recent works evoke a carefully crafted stage rather than the happenstance of real life. Echoing fairy tales and Dutch genre paintings of the 17th century, my paintings illustrate adolescent girls and young women in scenes that play on Romantic notions such as the peril of curiosity, the potency of beauty, and the inevitable fall of innocence. Despite their childlike references however, these works are meant to embody the prophetic perspective of an adult looking backward to an overly romanticized, fictive past. As an adult, one can look longingly at this world of innocence, and whether it existed or not, they have always fallen from it: they have traded their naiveté for the role of a diviner.

To see more, check out www.kyla-zoe.com and find her on Instagram

Originally published 7/29/2019

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