Richard Harmetz is the 3-Dimensional Artist Spotlight winning artist for the month of January 2019. He is a Southern California based artist. His passion is creating figurative and realistic work in bronze. Richard’s goal when producing his images is to use body language and the suggestion of movement to tell a story and try to create an emotional response within the viewer.

Richard’s Art Exhibition will be featured on the website for the month of January 2019. The gallery will promote Richard and his work on the Fusion Art website, in Fusion Art’s Artsy.net Gallery, individual online press releases to hundreds of outlets, email blasts to over 2500 collectors, galleries, buyers and art professionals, in online event calendars, art news websites and through the gallery’s extensive social media outlets. Fusion Art’s objective is to promote the Artist Spotlight winning artists, worldwide, to art professionals, gallerists, collectors and buyers.

Please read Richard’s biography and artist statement below as he describes his history and inspiration in his own words. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see his exhibition.

If you are interested in purchasing any of these award-winning pieces, or to see more of Richard’s work, please visit his website.

Also, please visit Fusion Art’s YouTube Channel to see Richard’s Solo Art Exhibition Video.

Thank you to all the artists who participated in the Artist Spotlight competition and congratulations to Richard and the other Artist Spotlight winning artists.

Richard Harmetz‘s Biography

Richard Harmetz was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. He is a graduate of UCLA School of Dentistry and maintains a practice in San Diego. Even within his profession, art has always been his passion. It offers an all-encompassing world view that has been a part of his life for over 25 years. During that time, he has produced several pieces which have found homes from hotels and hospitals to National Parks.

Dr. Harmetz is self-taught and sculpting is an extension of his cosmetic work. It gives him gives the outlet he needs to focus on the things that have the most meaning in his life. It is a way of abbreviating feelings which would, otherwise, require endless elaboration. He finds that bronze further simplifies everything by making subtle contour paramount in expressing ideas.

In his perspective, bronze sculpture is about connecting with others and asking if you might possibly see it his way too.

Richard Harmetz‘s Artist Statement

My passion is doing figurative and realistic work in bronze. The goal when producing my images is to use body language and the suggestion of movement to tell a story and try to create an emotional response within the viewer. I choose to sculpt different subjects every time and try to give them a life, which can be understood, but still be intriguing. My art and the way I choose to portray it says quite a bit about me and the way I look at the world.

Because I am self-trained, and the subjects vary, whenever I begin a sculpture there are new forms and challenges. It is thrilling to try to do something completely unique and different each time. I always start with a vision of my final work. For me, sculpting is a very time-consuming process and it often takes weeks or months before the picture of what I want to portray takes shape. Time allows me to reflect upon what I’m really trying to say as I refine the clay. Often, I find that changing perspective or the position of figures is required to reach my goal.

Unlike the various forms of modern art, realistic art does not allow as much latitude for interpretation. Nevertheless, I like the way small things, such as the pressure on skin, the turn of a head, the look in an eye, or the smile on a face can completely change the meaning of what you see. I dwell on those things.

Sculpting subtle nuance is only successful if you have extremely talented people assisting you in the foundry where months of work is transformed first to wax and then to bronze. I am indebted to many talented people who nurse my work to its conclusion.

In the end, I try to produce bronze artwork, which is much like the image from the “Burst” setting on a camera. I hope those who observe my artwork will have a sense of my subjects a second or two before I captured them. Therefore, there is a story along with a shape.

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