Rafael Klein

Rafael Klein’s work spans across media – from sculpture to painting graphics and artists’ books, but it consistently explores a narrative. This narrative often is carried out in a modularity of work – many small works which lead to one large story. Most recently, this tendency of Klein’s can be seen in the 120 sculptures of Moment to Moment, a touring exhibition which traveled to three venues in Italy, before touring cathedrals in the UK.

Klein’s sculpture carries its physical weight lightly, forming a dialogue between the plastic nature of 3 dimensional work and a flowing spirituality. This is evident in the works which make up the Dante series, exhibited widely. He has created a large number of sculptures for the public realm, including the ASPIRE sculpture for the historic home of the Employment Academy, the Angel of Poetry for the Biblioteca Classense in Ravenna, as well as many sculptures for parks and schools in the UK.
Sometimes the modular flow questions the nature of sculpture itself, making sculptural letters and words which form a ‘rebus’ of meaning.

Klein seems to think in sculptural terms as easily and directly as the bird sings’ – John Russell Taylor, The Times