LANDFORMS

Artist: Rob Licht
Rob Licht lives in Trumansburg, NY. He developed an early interest in art and design, influenced by his father, an architect and watercolorist. His formal training includes a BFA in Sculpture from the Maine College of Art (formerly Portland School of Art) and an MFA from Cornell University. Licht has exhibited his sculpture and drawings throughout the Northeast. Most recently he has exhibited at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn, NY and at City Lights in Ithaca, NY. His work was also included in the Munson Williams Proctor Museum of Art Central New York Artists exhibition (1995). Licht served as Director of the State of the Art Gallery in Ithaca. He has taught sculpture, drawing and design at Ithaca College, as well as Metal Sculpture to adult education students at Cornell University and at the Maine College of Art Summer program. He has also been a visiting artist at various colleges and grade schools.

Land Forms, commissioned for the Sculpture Garden in 2010, evolved from a lifelong interest in and aesthetic investigation of the landscape. It is created of welded steel that is powder coated for color and durability. “My work explores the influence of landscape on the individual by addressing the power of certain forms found in nature to evoke memory, emotion and anthropomorphic physicality….the works celebrate the poetic; [and ]… question our increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the natural world. Nature is perceived as a mirror – not only of our own physical form, but of our relationship with our inner selves.”

Rob Licht’s primary medium is welded steel. His sculptures range in scale from small pedestal pieces to large outdoor works. In between creating art and teaching he has worked in the building trades including: masonry, ornamental plaster, woodworking and welding.
Awarded a residency in 1988, Licht says of his time at Sculpture Space: “The space and equipment afforded me the luxury of working on a large scale, and, more importantly, time during which I was to do none other than make art. This afforded me the opportunity to ruminate on ideas for sculpture, many of which are still bearing the fruit of realized work. My latest large scale piece, Land Forms, is one such work whose genesis can be traced back to the time spent as an artist-in-residence at Sculpture Space.”