Raphaele Shirley facts for kids

Raphaele Shirley (born in 1969 in Wisconsin, US) is a French-American artist. She creates art using many different types of media. Since 1993, she has been working where art and technology meet. Her art includes sculptures, light art, and public art. She also works with others and creates performances. Her work has been featured in well-known art magazines like the Art Newspaper and Art in America.

What Raphaele Shirley Does

Raphaele Shirley is a multi-media artist. This means she uses many different ways to make art. Her work includes art installations, sculptures made with light, and videos. She also joins art groups and creates live performances. Her art often explores big ideas like space, time, and things that don't last forever.

Since she started in New York City in 1993, she has helped create many large art projects. These include [PAM] Perpetual Art Machine and the New York International Fringe Festival. She has received grants from the Norwegian arts council for her public art and video projects. Many of her projects have won international awards. She shows her art in many countries around the world.

She has worked with famous artists and directors. These include Aaron Beall, Karin Coonrod, and Richard Foreman. For her live performances, she has also teamed up with musicians. Some of these musicians are Rhys Chatham, David Watson, and Peter Zummo.

Raphaele Shirley's Early Life

Raphaele Shirley's father was Hunter B. Shirley, a psychologist. Her mother, Anne Couelle, came from the French Couelle family. This family was known for rebuilding churches and for their architecture. Raphaele is the youngest of three children.

When she was a teenager, she moved to Aix-en-Provence, France. There, she started exploring sculpture, photography, and other art forms. She took art classes to learn more. In the early 1990s, she went to the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Raphaele Shirley's Training and Work

From 1997 to 2002, Raphaele Shirley worked as an assistant for Nam June Paik. He was a Korean artist based in the US and is known as the founder of video art. She helped him create public laser artworks. These were shown at the Olympic Park Lake in Seoul, Korea. She also helped with his art show called "The Worlds of Nam June Paik." This show was at the S.R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and Bilbao, Spain.

She also helped build and set up many of his sculptures. These sculptures were made with old TV screens. Some examples include "Tv Fish" and "Tv Garden." Since 2005, she has helped fix and take care of Nam June Paik's art for museums. She has also worked with CTL Electronics Inc. to help museums restore other new media artworks. These include works by artists like Bruce Nauman and Bill Viola.

Art Projects and Community Work

In 1997, Shirley helped start The New York International Fringe Festival. She also co-directed Fringe Al Fresco until 2001. This part of the festival showed the work of over 100 artists. Their art was displayed in public places across the Lower East Side in New York.

From 2002 to 2004, she co-founded the Times Square Arts Center with Aaron Beall. This center was in a building on 42nd and 8th Avenue in New York. Over 100 performances, screenings, and art installations were held there.

In 2005, she helped create [PAM] Perpetual Art Machine. This was an interactive art project and video art group. It had over 2000 members and video artists. [PAM] held over 50 exhibitions showing video art from around the world.

Raphaele Shirley's Artworks

In 2008, Shirley began making sculptures purely with light. Her piece Light Shot 0910 explored spiritual ideas using two glowing rectangles. These rectangles seemed to float in the air. This work was shown in a solo exhibit at the Chelsea Art Museum. Another piece, Shooting Stair, used light and mist. It created a staircase made of light, installed outdoors in New York.

Light and places come together in two public art pieces she made in Norway. Jewels of Kvinesdal is a huge outdoor light sculpture. It overlooks the Kvinesdal fjord. From an open area, a tower of light shines into the night sky. People many kilometers away can see it. This artwork was shown at the Utsikten Kunstsenter Art Center in Kvinesdal, Norway.

Stargaze in Sandnes is a 14-minute film. It mixes memories of people and the land, past and future. It uses maps, 3D animation, and old family films from the people of Sandnes, Norway. This project was funded by Norway's KinoKino Art center.

During The Arctic Circle, an art residency, Shirley created art using earth and light. She made these works while sailing in the Arctic. She documented them with photographs.

Before her Norway and Arctic trips, she created her Sunken City projects. For these, Shirley used silicone and bronze. She added lasers, fog, and loud sounds. This created a feeling of ancient and futuristic cities. These works were shown in Basel, New York, and Brooklyn.

Shirley's art has also been shown at the KAI art center in Estonia and The Queens Museum. Her work has been seen at the Moscow Biennale and The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

She also worked on PROJECTED SPIRAL- concept for Flint Michigan in 2014. This was an idea for a sustainable land and light art piece. It was for the Flint Public Art Project.

Shirley created a piece called 67. Double. It has an outer aluminum disk and a wooden disk painted with a neon ring. It can look curved inward or outward, dark or shiny, depending on how you look at it. The paint on the front looks like moon craters. The bright light and silver background create a grand feeling.

100 pink smoke flares was a series of outdoor art pieces. She lit 100 to 200 smoke flares at once. This temporarily covered the landscape behind them.

/e-media-c\ is a collaboration with David Watson, Peter Zummo, and Kevin Shea. This project uses sound, light, and time to bring a static art piece to life. It takes place between two mirrored, rotating disks. These large disks act as both a set and a sculpture. They also work as simple speakers and projectors.

6.6 and 4 is a sculpture made of wooden rings. It expands from the wall in a curved shape. It also has a silver aluminum disk and neon light. The wood is natural on the front. Its back is covered in Dutch metal leaf and lit from behind with a white neon strip.

Shirley often shares updates about her new projects and collaborations on her Instagram page.

Raphaele Shirley lives in Brooklyn, New York.

See also

Selected Exhibitions and Performances:

• 2019 - Opening performance for the KAI art center in Tallinn, Estonia.
• 2018 - /e-media-c\ - Creative tech week- Hunter's college Black Box- New York. With David Watson, Peter Zummo, Kevin Shea.
• 2016 - 12.6 Lyrae - The Chimney - Brooklyn, New York.
• 2010 – 0910 Light Shots – Chelsea Art Museum. Project Room for New Media – New York City, NY.
• 2010 – Arctic Lights – Dorfman Projects – New York City, NY.
• 2009 – Jewels of Kvinesdal – Utsikten Art Center – Kvinesdal, Norway (public art commission).
• 2010 – Docks Art Fair – Marc de Puechredon Gallery – Lyon, France.
• 2008 – Sunken City – Marc de Puechredon Gallery – Basel, Switzerland.
• 2008 – Sunken City Episode II – Emily Harvey Foundation – New York City, NY.
• 2007 – Sunken City Preludes – PowerHouse Projects – Brooklyn, NY.