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 shown in famous art magazines like the Art Newspaper and Art in America.

About Raphaele Shirley's Art

Raphaele Shirley is an artist who uses many different ways to create. Her art includes large art setups, light sculptures, and videos. She also works with groups of artists and creates live shows. Her art often explores ideas about space, time, and how things change.

She started her career in New York City in 1993. She still lives and works there today. She helped create big art projects like the Perpetual Art Machine and the New York International Fringe Festival. She has also received awards for her public art and video projects. Her art is shown all over the world.

Raphaele Shirley has worked with many well-known artists and directors. These include Aaron Beall, Karin Coonrod, and Richard Foreman. For her live performances, she has teamed up with musicians. Some of these are Rhys Chatham, David Watson, and Peter Zummo.

Early Life and Art Journey

Raphaele Shirley is the daughter of Hunter B. Shirley, a psychologist. Her mother, Anne Couelle, comes from a French family famous for building. Her family helped rebuild churches and even moved parts of old churches. This includes parts of The Cloisters in New York City. They were also known for their stone quarries and architecture.

Raphaele is the youngest of three children. When she was a teenager, she moved to Aix-en-Provence, France. There, she started exploring art through classes. She learned about sculpture, photography, and other art forms. In the early 1990s, she went to the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Aix-en-Provence, France, to study art.

Learning and Helping Other Artists

From 1997 to 2002, Raphaele Shirley worked as an assistant for Nam June Paik. He was a famous Korean artist who started video art. She helped him create large laser art projects. These were shown at the Olympic Park Lake in Seoul, Korea. She also helped with his art shows in New York and Bilbao, Spain.

She also helped build and set up many of his TV-based sculptures. These included "Tv Fish" and "Tv Garden." Since 2005, she has helped restore and save Nam June Paik's TV artworks. These are found in museums around the world. She also helps museums and private collectors restore other new media artworks.

Art Projects and Community Work

In 1997, Raphaele Shirley helped start The New York International Fringe Festival. She also helped lead "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.

In 2005, she co-founded the project [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 art shows featuring video art from artists worldwide.

Amazing Light Art and Installations

In 2008, Raphaele Shirley started making sculptures purely with light. One piece, Light Shot 0910, showed two glowing rectangles of light. They seemed to float in the air. This work was shown at the Chelsea Art Museum. Another piece, Shooting Stair, used light and mist to create a staircase made of light. It was set up outdoors in Southampton, New York.

Light and places come together in her public art pieces in Norway. Jewels of Kvinesdal is a huge outdoor light sculpture. It sits above the Kvinesdal fjord. A tower of light shines into the night sky from an open area. People can see it from many miles away. This art 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 places, past and future. It uses maps, 3D animation, and old family films. These films were given by the people of Sandnes, Norway. This project was funded by Norway's KinoKino Art center. The film was also shown at The Museum of Moving Image in New York.

Raphaele Shirley also went on a trip called The Arctic Circle. During this trip, she made art using earth and light while sailing in the Arctic. She took many photos of these works.

Before her trips to Norway and the Arctic, she created her Sunken City projects. For these, she used silicone and bronze. She added lasers, fog, and sounds. This created art that looked both ancient and futuristic. These works were shown in Basel, New York, and Brooklyn.

Her art has also been shown at the KAI art center in Estonia and The Queens Museum. Other places include the Museum of Moving Image and the former Chelsea Art Museum. Her work has also been seen at the Moscow Biennale and The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

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

Raphaele 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 in or out, dark or shiny, depending on how you look at it. The paint on it can look like moon craters.

100 pink smoke flares was a series of outdoor art pieces. She would light 100 to 200 smoke flares at the same time. This would temporarily hide the landscape behind them.

/e-media-c\ is a project with David Watson, Peter Zummo, and Kevin Shea. They use sound, light, and time to bring a still art piece to life. This live show happens between two mirrored dishes. These large spinning dishes act as a set, sculpture, and even speakers and projectors.

6.6 and 4 is a sculpture made of wooden rings. It sticks out from the wall like a curved bowl. It also has a silver aluminum disk and neon light. The wood is natural in front, but has metal leaf on the back. A white neon light shines from behind it.

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

She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Selected Art Shows 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.