Biography:
Orion Richey is a sculptor and metalworker based in Central Illinois. Trained in industrial fabrication from an early age, he holds degrees in philosophy, sculpture, and business, including an MFA Sculpture. His works integrates forged and fabricated metal with process-based approaches to forms, exploring spirals, gravity, recursion and structural emergence through contemporary , future-oriented sculpture.
Artist Statement:
My work investigates form as a process rather than a fixed object. Working primarily in forged and fabricated metal, I construct spiral and radial structures through recursive procedures that produce self-similar relationships across scale. Growth is disciplined by gravity, load and material resistance and plasticity under red hot conditions, allowing form to emerge without becoming arbitrary. Influenced by process-based philosophy and speculative science fiction, the sculptures operate as technical propositions - objects shaped as much by physical law as by imagination. Smaller aluminum works function as studies, while larger steel sculptures extend these investigations into architectural and public space. Rather than illustrating ideas, the work establishes conditions that invite the viewer to experience structure, motion, and balance as a lived phenomena.
I am particularly interested in the multi-arm spiral form, which is a composition of multiple spiral arms rotated around a center. My spiral designs are constructed and mapped using a variety of mathematical spiral concepts and artistically developed patterns. Using standard metalworking techniques and specially designed “hot working” tools and forges, I artfully design and fabricate multi-arm spiral/helical sculptures from steel plate. These are then powder coat painted with vibrant colors and mounted on unique "Art Technic" Bases for outdoor and indoor display.
My most recent designs, Inspired Spirals, Galactic Sculpture, is an ongoing, sculptural ambition that starts with Nature as Poetic Spiraling. Using an intuitive perspective and attending to nature’s spiraling forms, I pull, twist, and push the steel spiral arms into energetic helical lines that spiral around, twisting and reaching into space. This “drawing in steel,” this 3D calligraphy, signifies the swirling energies in the outer world, and symbolizes the multi-faceted existential movement of the growing self.
My steel sculpture is balanced and elegant. It stimulates the imagination and helps to beautify the environment and “living space” with a positive, optimistic, and futuristic aesthetic. It encourages a thoughtful exploration of Nature as Poetic Spiraling and humanity’s reach for greater consciousness and expanded self-awareness.
ORION RICHEY spiral Sculptor
1st place BEST OF SHOW CIAO GROUP EXHIBITION CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER OF PEORIA MARCH - May 2020
