Riis Burwell

The work of Riis Burwell makes its debut in Cloverdale this year with the graceful, towering bronze work entitled “Syncronetic #4”. Burwell’s sculpture draws its vitality from his own reverence for nature, and his fascination with the opposing forces of geometry and entropy that underlie the structure of the physical world. He is intrigued and inspired by the delicate balance between order and chaos, growth and decay of all matter, and reveals that “creating sculpture provides me with a deeper connection to the beauty inherent in nature and ultimately, to the Divine”.
.
Burwell feels great fortune in living and working in the Sonoma County foothills, where he finds that his daily connection with nature provides him with a foundation to sculpturally express dynamic tension in his work. He elaborates “I attempt to accomplish this balance between order and chaos, growth and decay through the graceful juxtaposition of form and line in opposing abstract elements. Often, a sculpture is composed of a central angular shape of substantial mass, intertwined with more delicate, rounded sculptural forms. In other pieces, the relationship between hard angles and gentle curves occurs within an individual shape or shapes. Successful artistic synthesis of these forms results in sculpture infused with energy.”   

Burwell expresses a strong preference for steel, stainless steel, and bronze in his works because of their permanence and inherent beauty, as well as their duality of character. “They are, at the same time, utilitarian yet graceful, strong yet yieldingly flexible, and have the ability to evoke a variety of textures -  from naturally rusted to smooth and gleaming, from a soft natural patina to deep brown or black.”

Photo by Tedd Peterson