KEITH JAY RAPHAEL is a global financier, President of Crosscurrents Investments, a photographer, sculptor, and woodworker. Keith’s photography is extremely diverse, a reflection of his extremely diverse passions and interests.
Keith attended the Sorbonne and the University of Vermont, but found photography while studying under his renowned High School teacher Walter Rabetz at age 14.
Kodak Award winner at age 18, Keith has produced photography for the last 50 years. Keith has had both gallery shows, curated shows, and has an avid following in 114 countries. Keith’s photography has evolved throughout the years, a hybrid of classic analog photography [influenced by Diane Arbus and Cartier Bresson] and his most recent digital photography based on a deconstruction or abstraction of photographs with graphic overlay, thus the term Photo-Graphics.
For more information on Keith's work, or to get in touch regarding installing and purchasing his works, or to just say hello, feel free to contact him.
Artist Statement
I believe that I have always viewed life from some artistic lens. Both of my parents had a great influence on my artistic life, particularly during my formative years from age 5 to 10.
My mother was a model from Czechoslovakia who was very vivacious and a lover of life. When I was 5, she took up sculpting and I would go with to her classes at the Hartford Art School [ in Connecticut USA ]. I watched as my mother and others magically produced art from raw clay . . . It was eye opening!. I was hooked on art.
My father was the owner of Raphael’s Department store, a retail clothing store similar to Lord and Taylor. Again, I was able to observe the art of creation, sitting for hours in the Art Department on the second floor and watching them make all of the signs and sketches of clothes by hand.
After a lull in my photography to take time for sex, drugs, and rock and roll during the first two years at the University of Vermont, I spent my third year in Paris studying International Economics at Science Po and the OECD, as well as Art from painting masters at the Sorbonne. The purposeful composition of painters to create strokes, colors, and design to lead the viewer through the work and hold it together was instrumental in my ability to compose my work in order to maximize impact, balance, and harmony simultaneously.
When I finished at the University and began my career in finance, I stumbled upon the mathematical work of Fibonacci from the 1300’s. His mathematic model was based on the natural occurrence of a pattern of multiplying in growth as well as the repetition of angles and ratios in all natural things. As a result of the application of this natural process upon trading models in finance, I began to see so many things around me through that structure, and it greatly enhanced my appreciation for and applicability of the principals. I greatly honed my skills for proportionality through ratios in my photography which again refined my vision and desire to create another direction in my work.
Fast forwarding through the next twenty years of marriage, twins, banking, and entrepreneurship in finance, the sporadic photography that I was producing was creating as much frustration as it was images. As a result, I chose a new direction, switching from analog to digital and applying all of my diverse techniques and experiences. In the process, I found that abstraction fed my imagination, creativity, and alternative thinking.
There is no greater artistic satisfaction for me than to produce an image that speaks to my diverse interests in art, nature, and humanity.