At Metro Space Gallery, Richard Nickel thinks young.
by Mike Dulin

“Everyone has a dream and they carry it with them.” Richard Nickel’s “Lost Labor,” wood and latex paint, 48 by 40 inches.

We all begin as children: This simple, fundamental truth is at the core of new work by artist Richard Nickel.
His show at Metro Space Gallery, “Songs for Children,” features ceramic and wooden sculptures. It offers up unforced poetic images, as if a child picked up a storybook and told the entire story without ever being able to read a single word.

Nickel is the director of ceramics and art education at Old Dominion University in Norfolk. Working from his campus studio and inspired by a recently revamped university woodworking shop, he’s evolved from his earlier work with ceramics to develop two-dimensional wooden sculptures as his new form. His shift to wood as a medium is a song from his own childhood.

“My dad was a woodworker with a shop in the basement of our house in Rochester, N.Y.,” Nickel says. “He taught me to use the lathe and the band saw and the table saw. I was reluctant to use the table saw — that thing can be scary.”

His evolution from ceramics is a way to break away from figurative, ground objects, he says. Each of his new pieces is constructed of individual wooden shapes attached to a wooden form and hung on the wall. Their colors are simple and the structures can be mazelike. The wooden sculptures carry original patterns found in his ceramic pieces.

“I really didn’t plan it out. I would just make a form and then make another form and let it dictate itself,” he says. “I would have all of these forms and rearrange them until I had the composition that worked.”

These final pieces also reflect his influence by self-taught artists and the obsession to detail he finds not only in their work, but also in their process. “They make art,” he says, “like cows give milk.”

The wooden and ceramic compositions are both filled with images of men, trees, babies, women, buildings and animals. “I have been fascinated with the idea of the mother and child,” Nickel says of one of his recurring themes. “The child was the symbol for the future. Everyone has a dream and they carry it with them.”

His current images deliver their narrative through the portrayal of action — simple snapshots of people working together and being together. “I want this dreamlike space where there is no up and no down,” he says of his arrangements. The scenes portrayed offer a wonderful story if only in a glimpse. He works without focusing on superficial elements that might add nothing to the story except for ego, vanity and distraction. In the art we find the beautiful bones of simplicity.

“I want my art to speak to everyone,” Nickel says. “In a lot of ways we are very much like children.”

“Songs for Children,” featuring new work by Richard Nickel, is on display through Nov. 28 at Metro Space Gallery, 119 W. Broad St. 307-9420.

Richard Nickel

Biography

Born October 1st 1969 in Rochester, NY. Richard Nickel received a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from State University College at Buffalo, New York in 1996. The received a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics 2000 at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.
In the fall of 2000 he began teaching Art Education and Ceramics at Valley City University in North Dakota.

In 2002 He began Teaching at Old Dominion University as the Art Education Program Director and the Ceramics Program Director. He started the Saturday Morning Art Classes in 2003.

Richard has been an active artist and educator. He has been published in several Lark books on ceramics, 500 Tiles: An Inspiring Collection of International Work Lark Books, 500 Animals In Clay, 500 Figures in Clay and 500 Bowls. His juried and invitational shows include, Tablets: text and Image in Clay Carbondale Cay Center, Colorado , Ink And Clay 34 Kellogg University Art Gallery at California Polytechnic, CA. Jurors: Darrel Couturier and Mark Greenfield, Forms & Shapes: Inspired by Architecture at Akar Gallery, Iowa City, IA , The George Ohr National Arts Challenge: Paul Soldner
The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, Biloxi, MS , he has been also awarded several Grants on research in Education and Ceramics, Faculty Innovator Grant, ODU Summer Research Fellowship.

Richard Nickel is currently preparing for two solo exhibitions for the summer and fall of 2009 at Riverviews Gallery  in Lynchburg Virginia and The Portlock Art Galleries in Virginia.