Keyes Art in Sag Harbor presents “OK – Sketchbook Drawings,” a new exhibition by Richard Sigmund, presenting an intimate selection of works drawn directly from the artist’s sketchbooks. The exhibit opened with a reception on January 17.
Richard Sigmund was an artist whose life and work were guided equally by spiritual practice and the everyday poetry of the street. A sense of vitality ran through his work, which drew inspiration from his surroundings as readily as from inward reflection.
Based in Brooklyn and Springs, Sigmund believed that art was not something made in isolation, but something shaped by the world around us — by signs, fragments, chance encounters, and the shared visual language of public life.
For Sigmund, the street itself was a collaborator, offering imagery and rhythms that became part of a collective creative experience. By re-contextualizing and reducing street-sign language such as “OK”, as in “Ok to turn,” Sigmund draws attention to how we have informed our urbanized landscape with directive and informative language and symbols. In the artist’s work, added layers of humor come from the layered and multiple meaning of these words.
Signs, symbols, and patterns, additionally, become a form of meditation informed by the artist’s long-standing practice in Buddhism and yoga. Words like “OK” become an informal mantra connoting emotional peace and stability, which he shares with the viewer. This practice of artmaking for Richard becomes a third realm of meaning, focusing the language of the streets into his studio and reframing it through his artwork.