ABOUT

Victor Raphael is a California native, born in Los Angeles. He studied art and theater at California State University, Northridge and graduated from UCLA. He has also worked as a curator and filmmaker. His artwork has been exhibited and collected throughout the United States and internationally.

“In my work, I explore the broad themes of time and space through my investigations of nature, deep space, art history, and the metaphysical. I’m interested in the big questions and in the smallest detail that reveals something divine. I want my art to appeal to the heart and senses as well as the mind. Ultimately, my goal is to inspire a sense of wonder and awe and to reflect on our place in the universe.”

For the past four decades, Raphael has produced a unique body of work by merging traditional media such as painting, photography, gilding and printmaking with modern electronic media, including video, digital printing and interactive technologies. In addition to his central themes of the exploration of the cosmos and aspects of travel—through space or time—and their visual records, the artist has developed an important body of paintings, in which water, for instance, and its protean and timeless qualities, form an important part. His photography process of digitally manipulating NASA photographs of planets and other natural celestial phenomena into Polaroid prints, and next altering them by hand with metallic paints and gold and metal leaf, earned his work to be selected in 1996 as among the 50 best examples of Polaroid photography included in Polaroid 50: Art and Technology, an international touring exhibition commemorating the company's fiftieth anniversary. 

Raphael’s work was also included in American Perspectives: Selections from the Polaroid Collection, curated by Michiko Kasahara, which toured museums in Japan and the U.S. in 2000-01 and The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation, curated by Mary-Kay Lombino, exhibited at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College and The Norton Museum, West Palm Beach, Florida in 2013. Raphael’s work was also included in LACMA’s See the Light—Photography, Perception, Cognition exhibition, curated by Britt Salvesen (2013-14). 

Raphael has had solo museum survey exhibitions at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum, Envisioning Space, curated by Michael Zakian (2000), The USC Fisher Museum of Art, Travels and Wanderings, organized by Selma Reuben Holo and curated by Ariadni Liokatis (2009) and the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA, Lead Into Gold, The World of Victor Raphael (2011), organized by Barbara Hitchcock, Independent curator and former Curator, The Polaroid Collections.

Raphael’s work is included in the collections of: J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, The Polaroid Collection, Skirball Museum, The Sol LeWitt Collection, USC Fisher Museum of Art, and Bibliotheque National de France, among others.

ARTICLES ABOUT VICTOR RAPHAEL AND HIS ARTWORK

GOLD LEAF THE POLAROID YEARS ART IN EMBASSIES SPACE COWBOY VIEWPOINT STARDUST