Kyla Rafert

I see my current work as the truth bent to perfection. Set within a meticulously designed world of vanity, beauty, intense color and abundant pattern, recent works evoke a carefully crafted stage rather than the happenstance of real life. Echoing fairy tales, Dutch genre paintings of the 17th century, and overly sentimental 19th century literature, these 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.