Artist Richard Dial Takes His Seat At The Table

“The work is extraordinary. [The pieces in the Richard Dial:Wise Spirit exhibit] demonstrate both conceptual and aesthetic mastery of the craft . . . fluid and dynamic. I’m very excited. I’m always excited to see how an artist is progressing,” says Philip March Jones, owner of MARCH, a curatorial platform and gallery operating at the intersection of visual art and social justice. He has worked with sculptor Richard Dial since 2008.

In 2016, after a decade in which he withdrew himself from the art scene to be a full-time caregiver to his late father, Dial expressed interest in resuming his craftsmanship. Two years ago, he doubled down on that interest.

“We planned to do an exhibition,” Jones continued, “and so some of these works, he had begun some 20 years prior. Richard set out to making, remaking in some cases, works that he felt would best suit what he wanted to say,” which is how he processed his eldercare experience and other deeply intimate family moments, and placing love, friendship, and labor on their proper spiritual plane.

In 1984, in Bessemer, Ala., Dial began making chairs as art objects. Using both his mastery of metalworking techniques, acquired at his family’s business—Dial Metal Patterns, which made quality wrought-iron furniture—and an inventive, socially engaged artistic vision, he explored the possibilities of reimagining the everyday item.

An initial flurry of creative work in the late 1980s contributed to his early recognition as an artist on the rise, after which he shifted his focus back to where it was needed: the family business.

When that died down, a second wave of creative activity in the mid-2000s resurged, only to go on hold once more as caring for his aging father took precedence.

Many of the works in Wise Spirit involve a reworking, refinishing, or otherwise revisiting these past periods with new colors, new upholstery, or formal additions. Symmetry is avoided at all costs, which Dial often calls attention to by drastically offsetting the height of the chair’s arms. The upholstery, a relatively new feature predominant in his recent works, is treated with paint until it resembles a quilt left in the woods, digested by moss or mold. And finally, there are the figures, deftly executed line drawings in metal worked into the backs of the chairs.

Much critical work of Dial, who is part of the Southern “self-taught” art landscape, has focused on the motifs of the Atlantic slave trade and its aftermath, when African craft workers often used objects as household containers or vehicles for housing spiritual forces.

While laudable on their own as pieces of contemporary sculpture, it’s vital to keep sight of the chair form as a theme in Dial’s artistic work, relentlessly weaving together the fine lines dividing the furnishing as a staple of function from the artwork as an object of contemplation.

Straus Media visited MARCH to take in the breadth of Dial’s powerful yet finessed work, then spoke to the artist about his new show, his motivations, and his vision.

Since the 1980s, you’ve had a stop/start timeline with your art. Each time you pick up again, do you begin where you left off or build on what you’ve done before?

More of going in a different direction. I’m still searching. I just have to let my mind go to work to create. When I look back at what I’ve done in the past, I can always learn from what mistakes I’ve made, and I really work from that and try to build from there.

And you have new experiences that you can incorporate into the work as well.

Yes, I’m always experiencing and trying different things; some of them work and some don’t, but overall, I process and try to learn from what I do.

African craft workers from the time of the slave trade often used found objects as containers in their day-to-day life. Is your work a continuation of what your ancestors did, or is it a tribute to it?

Definitely a tribute. I incorporate some of those traditions today.

Let’s talk about how you create. The pieces that shape the chairs are metal, then they’re painted, some are upholstered, or decorated. Do you still use found objects, as when you started out, or is it more deliberate now, sketching out what you want to do, and then you go find the pieces?

More deliberate. I sketch out, then through my metalwork experience, I just know what I’m looking for; if I can’t find what I’m looking for, I can produce it. And from there it’s where my imagination takes me.

Do you want to talk about a specific chair and the story or social commentary behind it?

I think we’ll take Master’s Chair II for an example. It rolls back up in the form of a body. And you also notice that it’s supporting the seat, therefore, supporting the person that is actually sitting in the chair. He’s the Master of all.

Is that from a personal story?

Most of [my work] has a personal side to it. I just look back at my life, and I try to create from that.

Richard Dial: Wise Spirit is currently at MARCH, 64 Avenue A at 5th Street, and runs through Dec. 6, 2025. Gallery hours are Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novel “The Last Single Woman in New York City.”