Second Chances: Ade Hodge-Raphael – Inspirational Artist

Inspirational Artist

Ade Hodge-Raphael is a young inspirational artist from St. Croix whose intricate art work is upcoming on both the local and regional scene. When you first encounter the intriguing work of Ade Hodge-Raphael your neck slowly tilts from side to side. There is this urge to pull out a magnifier to examine carefully for fear of missing any minute part of his drawings. The world around you is silenced and you don’t want to be interrupted. You’re filled with excitement as you discover the intricacies in his art.

Ade has been honing his artistic abilities for as long as he could hold a pencil, but he admits that he really started developing mechanical skills when he had trouble keeping up with taking notes in class. He somehow managed to develop a way to use lines and shapes to distinguish what he learned in class. While in college, Ade found himself immersed in all things Art, being an art model and taking introductory Art classes; however, it still took some time before he truly committed to becoming an artist.

December 15, 2020

As far as mediums for illustrating visual art, Ade has a passion for ink – just raw, dark, deep ink. and fine line work which helps him to get as much detail and information as possible when creating his heavy black and white contrast pieces.

An interview with Ade Hodge-Raphael. He speaks about his art and his bout with cancer.

When starting a new art piece, Ade can spend anywhere from 15-20 hours adding lines to his canvas forming the story narrative that he envisions. For him, every line matters in the art and he puts total focus on every stroke of his pen using meditation and his spiritual connection to the universe. He draws from this energy to produce the heavy detail found in his work and it allows the process to be less painstaking while honoring the effort required to achieve true completeness.

Ade Hodge-Raphael can be contacted at: machineghostgo@gmail.com

Ade Hodge-Raphael creates pieces using a fine line technique which results in complex, heavily detailed compositions. Below are a few samples of his work. (Click on images to view detail.)

Second Chance

It’s hard to imagine someone so young having cancer. From the outside, Ade looks healthy now but on the inside the emotional and physical took a toll on him. A few years ago Ade was diagnosed with stage IV-C nasopharyngeal carcinoma which is a severe head and neck cancer.

Ade was placed on a rigid, high potency treatment plan which involved both chemo and radiation therapies, but unfortunately it was only effective for about 6 to 7 months when the cancer returned. Fortunately, not long after the news, Ade was introduced to a relatively new and advanced type of immunotherapy, that was part of a clinical trial and began treatments. The treatment results have been extremely positive, significantly improving Ade’s condition and putting him on the road to recovery.

“When you’re told that you have Stage IV cancer and the only way you could survive is to participate in a clinical trial, messes with your psyche”.

Luckily Ade found solace in his art, his music and his dance. His advice to others inspired by art is to “Believe in yourself believe that what you’re doing is good enough that you have something to say”.