Metaface – Pierre Riche

Pierre Riche from Felton has a sculpture "Metaface", created out of welded mild steel with a baked powder coat, in the Cloverdale Sculpture Trail. Riche was obsessed with the fascination of how to reconstruct the human form. This obsession led him to a method of reconstruction using post-industrial metals. His art takes the raw mechanical materials of our day to day lives and reconfigures them to portray vitality, life and human expression in relation to the divinity he feels we are all connected to.

According to Riche, "Metaface" is a representation of Gaia, the earth’s feminine goddess principal personified in a mask. A physical space one can walk into yet see through. The face of Gaia is feminine because she gives birth to and sustains all life on the plant as a mother would to her child. She has a stern semi masculine look representing her co-creation with masculine principals, and her struggle to endure given man’s relentless onslaught of violence and senseless ecological destruction".

"Metaface" is located at the intersection of Cloverdale Blvd. and W. 2nd Street and is sponsored by Mail Center, Etc., 207-A N. Cloverdale Blvd. The sculpture is 8′ high by 7′ wide and 5′ deep and weights approximately 1,100 lbs.

Photo by Jude Gibson Byers