Artwork Description
Raphaelle Goethals – Waimoku
Dimensions: 87.25 x 63.25″ framed / 86 x 62″ unframed
Year: 2020
Medium: encaustic and mineral pigment on birch panel
This wondrous work, part of a new series by Belgian born artist Raphaelle Göethals, is inspired by the Waimoku Falls, a majestic 400 ft tall waterfall situated at the head of Ohe’o Gulch (also known as Seven Sacred Pools), in Maui, Hawaii. Its Hawaiian name literally means “fetch from exhausted gardens”— a reference to its fertile land of abundant streams and waterfalls that native Hawaiians used to create sophisticated agricultural systems, remnants of which can still be seen.
Raphaelle Göethals childhood was spent absorbing the beauty of European art. She moved to the United States to complete her art degree in Los Angeles, and that is where she finalized her unique abstract style. After only a short time in the United States, Raphaelle’s works attracted the attention of curators, private collectors, and art critics alike, and her paintings became highly desirable additions to their collections. The U.S. Department of State has curated Raphaelle’s paintings into its Art in Embassies program, thus exhibiting her paintings in such places as the American Embassy in Nigeria.
Her encaustic paintings are preoccupied with light and the space between heaven and earth. She sees painting as a space of exploration, where one can become lost in the atmosphere of beauty. She places concrete elements like the circle, calligraphic gestural mark to give the eye and the mind a place to rest while exploring her painting.