Pasted Together

The process of his art isn’t in itself glorious or hard or complicated. The finished product is accessible and inexpensive, but so are the materials. “I spend a lot of time at the thrift store,” he says. “I get these great amazing art books for about four dollars. It’s kind of sacrilege cutting them up, but, you know, so what. Big deal.” This is where all of his work begins—searching for something meant to be a book on art, true crime or well-intentioned architecture. Instead, it’s appropriated against its will by Raphael for something else. Perhaps more.

The biggest danger does not come from Jeff Raphael, but from ignoring him. It would be easy to disregard his art as shock value, or to shy away from the subject matter when you first glimpse what you’re fairly sure is a dead body. It’s OK to turn away from it.

Failure for him would be an audience seeing his work, understanding it, and failing to care. “I don’t care if people don’t like my stuff. If you don’t like it, great. But if you’re bored—that pisses me off.” It’s a statement on his larger goal—that even if you are forced to turn away, you are proving Raphael right in that moment. You reacted.