About the Artists

by Douglas McCulloh

The remarkable collaborative work of Victor Raphael and Clayton Spada takes as its territory the space between science and art. Their collaborative series carries the hallmarks of open-minded explorers setting out into terra incognita and uncovering riches and unexpected complexity.

“I’m interested in the big questions and in the smallest detail that reveals something divine,” declares Victor Raphael. His sense of the divine is omnivorous and open-ended. His accomplished body of work ranges from radiant abstractions based on ancient Jewish writings to photo collages of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan and ethereally modified Polaroids that evoke the haunting immensity of deep space. Inclusive in inspiration and open to personal interpretation, Raphael’s work is manifestly spiritual without being doctrinal.

Clayton Spada is a widely published scientist who has worked in the areas of retinal disease and vision research, informing his long career as a visual artist. Unsurprisingly, Spada’s artwork focuses on the processes of perception. His widely shown dimensional photo works combine layers of images, graphics, and texts. Transparencies float above other images, silk-screened graphics are layered onto glass, and references and meanings hover throughout. Spada is not content with giving us something to see in his pieces. Instead, he wants to show us how we see. His aim is to capture not just revelations, but how revelations happen.