GABRIELLE RAAFF
(b. 1970, South Africa, Lives and work in Cape Town)
Playing with the unknown lies at the heart of Gabrielle Raaff’s practice. For her, painting is a process that challenges a natural inclination toward control. Each work becomes a negotiation—a dynamic exchange between intention and surrender.
Raaff draws from found imagery sourced in local newspapers and her personal photo archive, as well as from photographs she captures in her surrounding neighbourhood of Lakeside. Yet these references are never endpoints; instead, they serve as springboards into emotionally charged, imagined landscapes where memory and sensation intermingle.
Often, she obsesses over a particular subject for months or even years, allowing her senses to steep in its details—contour lines, colour, texture, and pattern. These elements settle into her visual memory, evolving over time through dreams, moments of transit, or quiet reflection. When she enters the studio, it marks the beginning of a conversation with the blank canvas. She prepares large quantities of diluted, water-based oil, ink, and acrylic, readying herself for a process that is fluid and spontaneous.
Working flat on the floor, Raaff invites pools of watery paint to settle freely. Each return to the canvas reveals new developments—marks and shifts that occurred in her absence. She wrangles, wipes away, scrubs, and reapplies until a personality begins to emerge—something she recognizes, something that speaks. This act is always a collaboration, a balance of authorship and surrender.
The paintings Raaff has created for RMB Latitudes 2025 are intuitive visual reflections of sea and land. The smaller works originated during an art retreat by the coast, where the sea could be heard but not seen. These images draw from memory and embodied experience rather than photographic source material. The larger works take their inspiration from the vlei and mountain that form part of her daily landscape in Lakeside.
In all aspects of her work, Raaff engages with the unknown—following the echoes of place, gesture, and feeling to arrive at destinations that are both unexpected and deeply familiar.
Playing with the unknown lies at the heart of Gabrielle Raaff’s practice. For her, painting is a process that challenges a natural inclination toward control. Each work becomes a negotiation—a dynamic exchange between intention and surrender.
Raaff draws from found imagery sourced in local newspapers and her personal photo archive, as well as from photographs she captures in her surrounding neighbourhood of Lakeside. Yet these references are never endpoints; instead, they serve as springboards into emotionally charged, imagined landscapes where memory and sensation intermingle.
Often, she obsesses over a particular subject for months or even years, allowing her senses to steep in its details—contour lines, colour, texture, and pattern. These elements settle into her visual memory, evolving over time through dreams, moments of transit, or quiet reflection. When she enters the studio, it marks the beginning of a conversation with the blank canvas. She prepares large quantities of diluted, water-based oil, ink, and acrylic, readying herself for a process that is fluid and spontaneous.
Working flat on the floor, Raaff invites pools of watery paint to settle freely. Each return to the canvas reveals new developments—marks and shifts that occurred in her absence. She wrangles, wipes away, scrubs, and reapplies until a personality begins to emerge—something she recognizes, something that speaks. This act is always a collaboration, a balance of authorship and surrender.
The paintings Raaff has created for RMB Latitudes 2025 are intuitive visual reflections of sea and land. The smaller works originated during an art retreat by the coast, where the sea could be heard but not seen. These images draw from memory and embodied experience rather than photographic source material. The larger works take their inspiration from the vlei and mountain that form part of her daily landscape in Lakeside.
In all aspects of her work, Raaff engages with the unknown—following the echoes of place, gesture, and feeling to arrive at destinations that are both unexpected and deeply familiar.
Education
1992 BAFA, University of Stellenbosch, SA
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022 As You Were (131a Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2019 Echoes from the South (SMITH gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2017 Trail (SMITH Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2015 Night Watch (Salon 91, Cape Town, ZA)
2009 In Our Midst (Muti Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
Selected Group Exhibitions & Art Fairs
2025 Wondering Through (99 Loop Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2024 Brave New World (Graham Contemporary, Johannesburg, ZA)
2024 See Green (99 Loop Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2023 Optimal Vibration (Graham Contemporary, Johannesburg, ZA)
2023 Borrel (Woordfees, Stellenbosch, ZA)
2023 I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (Cavalli Gallery, Somerset West, ZA)
2023 Hot Spell (99 Loop Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2022 Painter Painter (Barnard Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2021 Code (131a Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2019 Emphatic Whispers (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2018 Investec Cape Town Art Fair (Cape Town, ZA)
2015 However (Art Hub Gallery, London, ZA)
2015 Empire (Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2014 Scintilla: An Alchemy Show (Commune 1, Cape Town, ZA)
2014 Rotterdam Art Fair (Rotterdam, NL)
2014 Turbine Art Fair (Johannesburg, ZA)
2013 Investec Cape Town Art Fair (Cape Town, ZA)
2011 People (duo exhibition with Tom Cullberg, Chagan Contemporary, London, UK)
1992 BAFA, University of Stellenbosch, SA
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022 As You Were (131a Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2019 Echoes from the South (SMITH gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2017 Trail (SMITH Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2015 Night Watch (Salon 91, Cape Town, ZA)
2009 In Our Midst (Muti Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
Selected Group Exhibitions & Art Fairs
2025 Wondering Through (99 Loop Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2024 Brave New World (Graham Contemporary, Johannesburg, ZA)
2024 See Green (99 Loop Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2023 Optimal Vibration (Graham Contemporary, Johannesburg, ZA)
2023 Borrel (Woordfees, Stellenbosch, ZA)
2023 I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (Cavalli Gallery, Somerset West, ZA)
2023 Hot Spell (99 Loop Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2022 Painter Painter (Barnard Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2021 Code (131a Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2019 Emphatic Whispers (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2018 Investec Cape Town Art Fair (Cape Town, ZA)
2015 However (Art Hub Gallery, London, ZA)
2015 Empire (Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2014 Scintilla: An Alchemy Show (Commune 1, Cape Town, ZA)
2014 Rotterdam Art Fair (Rotterdam, NL)
2014 Turbine Art Fair (Johannesburg, ZA)
2013 Investec Cape Town Art Fair (Cape Town, ZA)
2011 People (duo exhibition with Tom Cullberg, Chagan Contemporary, London, UK)