Alistair Raphael was born in Dartford, England to Indian parents in 1966. Receiving his art education at Canterbury, Falmouth and Chelsea art colleges, his practice offers a powerful reflection on the convergence of biology, identity, and societal norms, crafting pieces that engage and converse with their specific surroundings and contexts. Raphael has held significant posts in UK art education for InIVA (Institute of International Visual Arts) and the Whitechapel Art Gallery and from 2001 was an advisor to the Visual Arts Department of the Arts Council of England.
Artist, art educator and curator, Alistair Raphael was born in Dartford, England to Indian parents in 1966. He pursued his artistic education at Canterbury, Falmouth (where he studied alongside the renowned Guyanan-born artist Hew Locke OBE RA), and Chelsea art colleges. Raphael's art offers a powerful reflection on the convergence of biology, identity, and societal norms. Employing various photographic techniques and a range of materials, his work engages and converses with their specific surroundings and contexts, frequently exploring themes surrounding body information, the progression of time, and the complex codes and procedures within science, medicine, and technology.
In 1988, he contributed to the exhibition Black Art: Plotting the Course, curated by Eddie Chambers in partnership with Bluecoat, Oldham Art Gallery, and Wolverhampton Art Gallery, which showcased pieces by young artists of African and Asian descent. In the same year, his work featured in the Indian Arts Festival display at the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool. Incorporating elements from Indian popular culture, Raphael integrated souvenirs from Indian market stalls with found items, such as fuse wire and electrical resistors, this fusion resulting in small assemblages that expressed ‘a shine-like preciousness’ (Clark 1988, p. 16).In his groundbreaking photographic installation Invasive Procedures at Camerawork Gallery (1991), Raphael explored the intricate relationships between the human body and the institutions that sought to define and control it. By mapping biology onto buildings, he challenged traditional metaphysics, urging viewers to reconsider notions of the infinite reproduction of the human body in both the macrocosm and microcosm. At the core of Invasive Procedures was an exploration of boundaries, both physical and conceptual. Raphael used massively enlarged photographs of blood cells placed on the windows as a metaphor for the body's invasion by external forces. Inside the building, microscope slides imprinted with words like 'Innocent' and 'Risk Group' protruded from walls, suggesting the scientific and societal categorisations that dictate perceptions of health, identity, and otherness. Raphael's work was deeply influenced by the historical and contemporary discourses surrounding AIDS, especially its portrayal in media and societal institutions. Drawing upon the vocabulary and imagery associated with the disease, he used it as a lens to address broader issues of surveillance, freedom, invasion, and privacy. For Raphael, the personal and the political are inextricably linked and through his art he poses the poignant question: ‘Where does my skin end and yours begin?’ (Fernando 1993).
In 1991, Raphael also participated in Chambers 4x4 exhibition, which showcased installations by Black artists across four different gallery spaces. Using photo enhancement techniques, he magnified human blood cells several thousand times and ingeniously imprinted them onto transparent rubber strips. These were then draped over a scaffolding framework, symbolising the body as a space that could be entered and exited. The installation was designed to be interactive, allowing viewers to move in and out through the hanging strips. The magnification rendered the imagery abstract, even though it still clearly represented a blood cell. The installation also alluded to the physicality of a construction site. As Chambers observed, the work examined 'the notions of the body being excavated, physically explored. A body reconstructed or tampered with’ (Chambers 1996). In 1994, Raphael took part in the Clean and Dirty exhibition at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, highlighting the contrasting pivotal shifts that marked the British sculpture renaissance of the 1980s. The Guardian art critic Robert Clark referred to Raphael’s back-lit transparencies of the HIV virus and the small video monitors embedded in a photograph of a vacant hospital bed as 'chillingly emotive' (Clark 1994).
From 1995–98, Raphael served as the education coordinator at the Institute of International Visual Arts (InIVA), when he oversaw the Artist-in-Research programme (1996–98). This initiative aimed to foster creative research for artists by enabling conversations between them and professionals from non-artistic sectors, including industrial and scientific establishments typically perceived as off-limits for artists. Examples of such institutions included a furniture factory, a government cartography department, and a chemical distribution facility. In 1998, Raphael took on the role of Head of Education at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and by 2001, he was serving as an advisor to the Visual Arts Department of the Arts Council. He has also curated a series of exhibitions, including Four by Four Post-Morality at the Cambridge Darkroom (1990), Hygiene at the IKON Gallery (1997), You Don't Know Me But… at Pitzhanger Manor, Ealing (1998), and To Be Continued… in 1999 at the New Art Gallery, Walsall. Raphael’s work is not currently represented in UK public collections.