Richard Herzog has created outdoor sculptures and installations professionally for more than 20 years. His works have been included in U.S. exhibitions in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami and internationally in more than 100 solo, group, and outdoor exhibitions. For the past few years, his focus has been on public art and outdoor sculpture, creating works that bring awareness to our surrounding environment using manufactured materials that bridge the gap between man-made and natural. These works have explored a variety of themes, such as climate change, storm damage to our forests, and everywhere in between. His works have been cited in Sculpture Magazine as “electrified ...by day” and in The Chicago Sun-Times as “representing the grit and grace of the contemporary south.” Herzog creates works that bridge the absurd and beautiful while highlighting man’s disconnection from the environment in which we live.
Richard Herzog | 2017
As an artist, Richard Herzog does not create work with a political agenda nor have a politically motivated view. His role is to bring awareness to the society in which we live and to the subjects, objects, and ideas that permeate our culture in a subordinate or subversive manner. Herzog's work explores botanical forms, the lack of interaction between man and nature, the artificialization of nature, and the patterning that occurs in nature. These sculptures talk about organization and the chaotic nature of natural and man-made forms. He looks at how items are composed and their many parts, then abstracts their elements, keeping true to their inherent qualities. Some sculptures are more organic in form, as if growing or flowing from group to group, mimicking ivy or spring flowers sprouting here and there. All are a combination of a systematic organization of natural forms possessing a chaotic multi-layered visual effect creating a metaphor of our world, dominated by its rapid pace and over-stimulation.