Richard Brubaker’s career is truly interdisciplinary, bridging natural sciences and the visual arts. He studied chemistry at Davidson College, class of 1959, and received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. After retiring from his practice as an ophthalmologist and visual scientist at the Mayo Clinic, Brubaker set up an art studio on a farm near Rochester, Minnesota. In his years as a medical student, Brubaker acquired metal-working skills making parts for custom-made stereoscopic cameras in the Howe Laboratory in Boston Massachusetts’ Eye and Ear Infirmary. Later as a physician, Brubaker continued learning metal work in the fabrication of research instruments for his laboratory. He now applies his metalworking skills to his artistic practice. Since 2006, he has fabricated over 200 pieces of sculpture using steel and aluminum. Each work combines the aesthetic qualities of nature with the idealism of human design, and he continues to draw from his background in the natural sciences. He uses imagery from biological processes such as evolution, metamorphosis, symbiosis, and homeostasis. These abstractions are meant to involve the viewer as an active participant in the creative process by evoking mental imagery.
