From Zero To Infinity

Victor Raphael and Clayton Spada have long been fascinated with the hidden interrelationships of all things. Exploring the intersections of nature, philosophy, art, and science, they reveal new perspectives on humanity’s place in the universe. Several years ago, they began collaborating to pursue the conceptual threads unifying all existence, finding visual inspiration in many sources, including works on classical philosophy, Newtonian optics, the Spanish Inquisition, Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle, mythical creatures, electromagnetism, Native American religious rites, and the Pioneer 10 spacecraft. Each of these diverse subjects exerted its own pull on their intellectual and creative processes as they began to conceive the artworks in the From Zero to Infinity series.

The production of Raphael and Spada’s pieces is a complex undertaking—yielding multilayered images that conjure ideas of disciplines that do not yet exist: allegorical astrophysics, cartographic cave art, mythological microbiology, and Kabbalistic quantum mechanics. They start with abstract images on Polaroid film, apply gold and metal leaf, and then scan them to create digital images. Like latter-day alchemists, they add and modify layers from digitized woodcuts, engravings, lithographs, etchings, and other visual media to create composite images. Their creative process is therefore a culmination of artistic techniques dating back millennia, adding to the mystical aura of their pieces.