ERIC M. JUKELEVICS/Arizona Daily Wildcat Arizona artist Robert Wick makes last minute additions to "Green Space" on Saturday, a few hours before opening his show at the Gocaia Gallery, 302 E. Congress St. The combination of natural and manmade materials in Wick's work allows him to create a relationship between humankind and nature.

Robert Wick takes the saying "between a rock and a hard place" very seriously.

As the co-owner of the Tucson Weekly and several other regional newspapers, Wick finds reprieve from everyday stresses by creating large-scale bronze sculptures with highly dynamic qualities.

The artist's work was on display in 1997 on the University of Arizona campus, and his smaller models and drawings are currently on display at the Gallery of Contemporary and Indigenous Art, 302 E. Congress St.

Wick's pieces incorporate large-scale bronze sculpture and living plants, which are embedded in the sculpture. Through internal watering systems and removable metal plates, Wick is able to add live plants to his sculptures that can be exchanged and replaced at will.

"I can change these pieces by the different plants I put in them - it really becomes almost more creative at the end of the product because you can change the character concept with the different plants you are putting in," Wick said.

The combination of natural and manmade materials in Wick's work allows him to create a relationship between humankind and nature.

But it is the life force of all things organic that propels Wick to create.

"Whether it is something that grows near a volcano (or) underneath the ocean life, once it gets going, has a tremendous force," Wick said. "It is really a will - a kind of life force - and that impresses me."

Wick's pieces have also inspired others to ponder these interactions.

"I think Wick's work is a beautiful balancing act between nature and a structural form and the beauty between the two - focusing on the importance of life and man's dependence on nature," said Phoebe McDermott, a painting graduate student and intern at Gocaia Gallery.

Wick finds (his) artistic muse in his own backyard view - a dramatic Southern Arizona stratified granite landscape - and in nature's ability to squeak her way through tight spaces.

"I have my studio in Sierra Vista in the mountains," Wick said. "The rocks, plants and the rock strata is where all the lines in my pieces come from. Strata is very much like ourselves. We evolve very much like the earth: We lay a layer of experience and eventually become who we are."

Wick is impressed by the power of nature to grow despite obstacles.

"I was really inspired by seeing the trees and plants that grew out of sheer rock," Wick said. "There would often be a crease of moisture in the rock, and a seed would drop in; and, because of the extremely dry climates, that's where it would grow. I like that, and I like the idea of the will of life to succeed under extreme duress."

Another source of inspiration for Wick is architectural structure. He incorporates the relationship between the biological and the structural into his work.

"Human beings live in houses and buildings; it is this animate/inanimate relationship that enhances our life and makes our life rich and wonderful," Wick said.

For more information about Wick's display, call the Gocaia Gallery at 623-4588.