www.raphaeleshirley.com

Sculptures

Elevation in Time 2007

mixed media

"Raphaele Shirley’s work creates a space for the artist and viewer that is a refuge, an imaginary artificial landscape that appears to extend infinitely, created from styrofoam blocks. She reclaims the disregarded leavings that are the refuse of our consumer society in much the way that artists lay claim to disused spaces in the liminal areas between residential and commercial districts in space, and between a now-defunct industrial economic use and the future development of condos in time. Elevation in Time includes not only the relatively traditional materials of wood, marble, and photographs, but sound, light, and infrared sensors. The technological elements heighten the sense that we are looking onto a kind of futuristic moonscape, a cool and peaceful place of contemplation. By creating this controlled environment with its accompanying highly personal soundtrack, Shirley asserts her claim to place in a way that is both physical and psychological, but she also welcomes us into her world, inviting us to catch glimpses of her history by traveling through her soundscape – and travel we would, if it were installed here as intended, as an elevator cab."

Elizabeth Grady

"Elevation in Time" is composed of several elements: sound, light,infrared sensors, digiprints, wood and marble. The photograph in“Elevation in Time” is a single image that has been divided into equalthree sections in an effort to impinge on the viewer’s space withquestions of perspective and dimensionality. To that end, thissculpture is confrontational. However, instead of violence orpolitics, its message moves toward astonishment and the sublime. Theimage itself is of piece of collected Styrofoam that Shirley foundunusually fascinating. Its circular molding shares more than a passingresemblance to the bleachers of great stadiums like the Coliseum inRome. And yet, because of the porous nature of Styrofoam, its formalcurvature appears somehow organic, like a dried sponge, marble orlimestone. "

Colin Huerter

Documentation 1/ 2003-2007

Valise of 45 photographs printed on tiles arranged in 5 trays. Each tray covers a different periods of photography

1) typology 2) compositions 3) close ups 4) manipulated 5) typology (other)