<strong>Richard Herzog</strong>
<strong>Home:</strong> Sarasota, Florida
<strong>Sculpture name:</strong> “Symbiosis”
<strong>What is it?</strong> A cluster of metal stalks with yellow translucent leaves fanning out from the top.
<strong>What was the idea behind “Symbiosis”?</strong>
“We’ve become so more integrated with our computers and silicon that we’re not really feeling that there’s a separation between them. It’s more natural now how we react to all of these manufactured items along with nature. So there was this synthetic yellow material. I used to live in Florida and Oklahoma, and I kept thinking how these places could use some shade. That got me thinking about a kind of umbrella design, but with bright colors that feels like a big leaf of some sort.”
<strong>W</strong><strong>hat’s your approach to your work?</strong>
“With this piece, I was drawn to certain materials such as the yellow vinyl. It’s so synthetic and so unnatural, but there’s a quality that’s so vivid and like so many things you find in nature. A lot of times, my pieces are variants on plants and flowers and things in nature. I try to make something that’s like a weird synthetic version of them.’
<strong>What does art mean to you?</strong>
“As a kid, I loved taking things apart. I was always doing something with my hands. So as a necessity of taking everything apart but wanting to use these things again, I had to learn how to build things. It grew from that. With sculpture, it’s the physicality of it, the combination of expression and a degree of engineering?”
