“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.”
Michelangelo
Sculptors
Simon Rigg
Growing up in Australia, surrounded by a vast “bush landscape,” I witnessed how open spaces could be both freeing and confining, echoing the challenges found in bustling cities.
As a sculptor deeply immersed in my artistic journey, I explore the intricate dance of reflection and change, anchored in the intimate connection with materials that give life to my sculptures. My art dives into the concept of landscapes — not just the obvious city or nature setting — but also as the subtle architecture that molds our emotions and perceptions.
My sculptures act as visual stories, inviting viewers to explore diverse human experiences within these landscapes. While abstraction has long guided my artistic expression, my evolving work introduces figurative elements, forming a nuanced emotional discourse.
From small personal works to large commissions, my sculptures vary in scale, employing materials like marble, cast metals, porcelain/ceramics, and wood. This distinct palette weaves simplicity and complexity, connecting viewers to the essence of how we visualize and experience the landscape.
Recent Work
Derek Piasecki
Impermanence – the condition of continuous change – is a tenet familiar to both Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism and Western traditions such as Stoicism. In the present work, this transience of material phenomena is signified in a synthesis of opposing symbols, both stark and subtle. A grinning, slightly larger-than-life skeletal bust ostensibly represents death, whilst a golden egg emerges from this peculiar buddha’s crown chakra, suggesting not merely birth, but immortality. What appears on the surface as bone is, in fact, actual eggshell. Here, the shells of no less than 49 eggs were painstakingly mosaicked atop a layer of real gold leaf. The cracked egg reminds us of the fragility of life, but it is also merely a veneer beneath which a lustrous light shines. The number 49 is a number significant in Tibetan Buddhism, representing the number of days a soul traverses the bardo state, the period between death and rebirth. Finally, the large circumpunct – circle and dot – adorning the figure’s third-eye is a symbol associated with medieval alchemists, Masons, and Jungian analysts; the circumpunct appropriately variously represents, gold, the sun, and the immortal Self.
The Buddha of Impermanence
2019
28“ h x 12” w x 9” d
Eggshells, Gold Leaf, Aqua-Resin
Howard Springer
The vocabulary of my sculptures is based on the architectural and the surreal. The forms are predominantly totems, shadowbox constructions, small houses, building facades, shooting galleries and installations. The architectural references are drawn from traveling fairgrounds, circuses, amusement parks, and especially Coney Island. Other elements include many decorative building facades, shrines, and temples. My sculptures include the use of elements such as doorways, hallways, stairways, gargoyles, masks, columns, and collages. It integrates many architectural styles.
Drawing on the real and imagined, especially the world of the amusement park, which as a metaphor reflects the world of fun and danger, good and evil, moral and immoral, innocence and its many opposites and paradoxes.
Sculptures shown from 2005 - Present