Dick Termes is an internationally acclaimed artist who’s work has been recognized from San Francisco to Paris, France, from New York to Japan and his one of a kind spherical paintings have been published in books all over the world. Recently, Termes’ piece titled “The Big Bang” was featured on the cover of France’s publication of Une Belle Histoire du Temps which means A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking.
Unlike any other painter; Termes paints on spheres which, when completed, are known as Termespheres. Each Termesphere is a revolving three-dimensional space/time exploration of an entirely closed universe, meaning that what you see, rotating in front of you, is one complete world or environment.
Visit the Gallery to experience Termespheres for yourself.
So… What is a Termesphere?
What you are seeing when you look at a Termesphere painting is an optical illusion. An inside-out view of the total physical world around you on the outside surface of a hanging and rotating sphere. If you were on the inside of this sphere, this painted image around you would seem normal, but it is read from the outside. From any point when you look at the spherical paintings, the image reads correctly. Termespheres capture the up, down and all around visual world from one revolving point in space. Most of the time these spheres are painted on the outside so it takes a six point perspective system to keep all of this environment around you organized.
Dick Termes has been painting spherical paintings since 1968 when he received his Masters Degree in Art from the University of Wyoming. He continued his pursuit with his thesis on the Termesphere at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles where he received his Masters in Fine Arts.
What is 6 Point Perspective?
The basic rules of traditionally defined perspective were formulated in the fifteenth century in Italy by Piero della Francesca, Leon Battista Alberti and others. In the fifteenth century view, if the horizon around you was imagined as 360 degrees, two point perspective drawings and paintings held 90 degrees of the visual world. In other words, their paintings could capture everything between the North point on the horizon to the East point. Termes has expanded this discovery of perspective in order to capture more and more of the visual world. With six point perspective, drawings and paintings reveal a total view encompassing the full 360 degrees in all directions.