Rajaa Gharbi, M.A. Whole Systems Design, 1998

The works of painter Rajaa Gharbi will be on display during the month of October at Port Townsend’s Artisans on Taylor Gallery and marks the first gallery showing in Port Townsend of the Tunisian-international artist.

Gharbi, a Seattle resident, is a painter, poet, and filmmaker whose paintings and work (www.rajaagharbi.com) are highly sought after in the United States and internationally by private collections, galleries, museums and scholarly reviewers. Her career has spanned her lifetime and is born from her life experience, the tradition of story telling within her family, the vivid imagery from her home country, her work in film and languages, as well as the travels and life she has chosen and created. She is also an accomplished poet and was also a national fencing champion in her native homeland during the 1970’s.

Gharbi will present a body of semi-abstract paintings bursting with color, nuance, mystique, and beauty. Her works take the viewer into a world that hits one on a guttural level. They show evidence of her birth in a foreign land and maturing in both her native Mediterranean and the Northwest, where she has resided for nearly thirty years. The vivid colors and brush strokes give way to poetic explorations in ancient scripts, small sketches and slashes, and worlds that balance between reality and mysticism.

“I paint images that explore real or imagined, ancient or contemporary stories and myths. Sometimes my paintings are last images of dreams or film fade-in-fade-out frames where the fantastical and the realistic converge in liquid movements and miniaturized, subdued or sweeping contrasts of light and dark. I like to explore human inner emotional and intellectual landscapes or our collective psyches.” Her use of gouache, acrylic, pen, and ink through layer upon layer invites each viewer to take a closer look and engage with the work on an intensely personal plane.

An artist’s reception for Gharbi will be held at Artisans on Taylor Gallery, during Gallery Walk Oct. 3 from 6 to 8 pm. The gallery is located in Port Townsend at 236 Taylor (across from the Rose Theatre) and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Please call 379-1029 for questions or visit them on-line at www.artisansontaylor.com.