Located on the Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) campus and near the Student Union building is an abstract sculpture that sits in a small, triangular garden. The sculpture is titled
Radiant Flux and created by artist Obie Simonis in 1979. I have passed by this sculpture dozens of times over the years and have always wondered about the history and the artist behind it. I was happy to be able to discover the artist's professional website and saw this sculpture listed on it
here. Beside the picture of this sculpture it reads:
The spiral or helix has been a symbol of spiritual transformation throughout history and across cultural lines. It is the modern representation of biological transformation. The most dynamic of forms, the helix visually represents movement. The elegant simplicity of the pure spiral has inspired me throughout my career.
The artist's biography has an interesting beginning and reads:
Sculptor Obie Simonis was raised in the Blue Mountain region of Eastern Oregon. After high school graduation, Obie moved to Portland, Oregon and enrolled at Portland State University where he studied sculpture under Frederick Littman and James Hansen. Littman trained under Maillol in the French Romantic tradition of bronze figurative work, and Hansen was a modernist of figurative abstraction with traces of native northwest Indian culture in his symbolism.
In 1973, Obie moved to Eugene, Oregon to study visual art and philosophy. Track and field was also a major part of Obie’s life at this time. As a sophomore, Obie broke the all-time record for javelin throwing at Portland State University. The University of Oregon had the best track and field program in the United States with Bill Bowerman, the Olympic coach, as head coach. Bowerman supported Obie’s move to the University to be a part of the team.
Fine art and philosophy were the primary academic concentrations that Obie pursued at U of O. John Wisdom of Cambridge University fame was a visiting philosophy professor during this period and was a great inspiration to Obie. The philosophical studies were centered on the British Analytic School, focusing primarily on Wisdom and Wittgenstein.
John Chamberlain was working on some major public sculpture at the University of Oregon for the International Sculpture Symposium and asked Obie to be his assistant.
Obie received a five year professional fine art degree (BFA) from the University of Oregon’s Architecture and Allied Arts department. On completion of the degree Obie returned to Portland, OR.
Lewis and Clark College in Portland hired Obie to be an artist-in-residence to create an outdoor sculpture in 1978-9 for the college’s new Science Complex. The sculpture is sited at the entrance of the Olin Science Center.
The Neill gallery in Soho NYC gave Obie his first solo exhibition in 1979. Obie was the youngest artist showing with the gallery. In 1980 the Foster/White gallery of Seattle mounted a solo exhibition of Obie’s sculpture and paintings. At this point Obie’s career was off and running. Several public art commissions in the Northwest were won and exhibitions were mounted from Seattle to Philadelphia and NYC.
If you look at other sculptures of Simonis on his website, the majority contain the same central 'helix' theme as this sculpture on campus. Radiant Flux was one of Simonis' first publicly placed sculptures. Surprisingly, there is no plaque or any reference to this sculpture and leaves the viewer to wonder who sculpted it and what it means. Perhaps someday OIT will give Simonis his rightful acknowledgement.