The painter and draughtsman George Rickey started to work in the medium of sculpture quite late in his career. However, inspired by the early sculptures of Alexander Calder, he soon emerged as one of the main proponents of kinetic sculpture. His stainless steel works, often monumental in size but always delicate, are characterised by a precise, matter of fact and laconic formal language. Rickey constructed the finely bent or right-angled lines and planes in such a way that their relationship is precisely balanced. The movement at the joints of the elements is thereby never fully defined by the element of chance or something unorganised. Rather, his works develop a kind of harmonious choreography, which not only plays with the appearance of the work itself but which is also fueled by the contrasting elements of material, form, size and seeming weightlessness of the movement.
Furthermore, in his works Rickey succeeded to integrate the surrounding space into the play of movement. Since the viewer can only perceive the space in relation to the interaction with Rickey’s sculpture, the surrounding space is redefined. He not anticipated contemporary developments such as Minimal or Conceptual Art, but later time-based and virtualised forms of artistic production.
George Rickey repeatedly participated in important shows such as documenta and his works can be viewed in public open spaces and museum collections all over the world.
