Gab
Studio - Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences | Akron OH
May 2026
Gab Raatz is drawn to those moments that can’t be held in one place. They’ve found a word for it in Japanese: komorebi, sunlight leaking through trees. It's the impermanence that gets them, the fact that what they’re seeing right then will never exist again in exactly that form, building paintings around that feeling.
Their work is abstract, figure-based, layered. The brushwork is part of the argument: marks that go fast, marks that go slow, thick and thin in the same breath. Gab describes the work as a conversation with the canvas: put down color, stop, observe how it feels, what it says, then move forward. They plan, but stay open to wherever the conversation leads.
Time and the idea of our relationship and perception of it heavily influences their work as they often ask: who is acting on whom? The figures in their paintings exist in that space as they let the viewer discover the painting. They enjoy the idea of keeping the eye moving and working a bit before grasping what it sees.
Gab is graduating, and describes themself as someone who lives 90 percent in the future, knowing it’s both a strength and a problem. Right now, though, they’re paying attention to what's right in front of them: the light filtering through the trees, the space around a person, what a painting communicates that words can’t.
Others from University of Akron
Explore other Chapters
