Mixed media 2007 produced by Marc de Puechredon Gallery

"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