“As my artwork has moved towards working with light, water and fog, evoking aspects of architecture, space, and the more ephemeral aspects of nature and life, it seemed that, in response to the expedition’s mission—creating art in the context of the sail in the Arctic—it was most appropriate to make temporary, ephemeral light/earth works with traces of light suspended above water.” -Raphaele Shirley

Dorfman Projects presents Arctic Lights, five photographs by Brooklyn based artist Raphaele Shirley, documenting her expedition to the Arctic Circle, October 2009. The exhibition runs concurrently with Shirley’s 0910 Light Shots at the Chelsea Art Museum, NY.

Raphaele Shirley, a multi-media artist, explores geometrical and architectonic forms and the different ways they relate to their surroundings. During her voyage to the arctic, Shirley transposed the idea of the light sculpture to the icy, nighttime waterscape using a makeshift “light brush” attached to a zodiac boat. From the rolling hull of the expedition’s vessel, she used time-lapse photography to capture the movements of the light as it sculpted across the surface of the water. Frozen by the Shirley’s lens, the lights form three-dimensional structures made up of cylinders, lines, and prisms, existing for an instant and leaving nothing behind, save for the specters that appear in her photographs.

Raphaele Shirley has exhibited in numerous galleries and museums in New York and abroad in addition to creating installations for public commissions. She was an assistant to Nam June Paik and is one of the originators of Perpetual Art Machine, an interactive video installation and online web community. Most recently, she completed Shooting Stair, a laser and water fog sculpture produced by Dorfman Projects and Jewels of Kvinesdal, a large-scale installation in Kvinesdal, Norway. Her newest laser sculpture, 0910 Light Shots, opens at the Chelsea Art Museum this May, followed by her short video, StarGaze in Sandes, in Sandes, Norway.