Step into a world of captivating optical illusions with Dick Termes' spherical paintings, known as Termespheres®. These globes provide a mind-bending inside-out view of entire three-dimensional environments. Inspired by the likes of M.C. Escher and Buckminster Fuller, Termes has carved his own niche by blending math, science and art in his creations. He introduces viewers to his innovative six-point perspective, which allows for a seamless representation of a visual world
without boundaries.
Explore the 28 Termespheres in the South Dakota Art Museum exhibition, "Termespheres: Without Beginning or End" (March 16 - July 14, 2024), with Dick Termes as your guide:
1. "Earth and Sky," 2020
“Horizontal patterns make up a scene of land formations and sky all around you.”
2. "Shell Shocked," 2021
“It takes the rhythm of the sea shell to infinity on two sides of the sphere. Colors in bands move in wavy patterns around the points and dark and light projections pull you into the two points. If you follow closely you will see the convex ridges on one side turn into concave hollows on the other side.”
3. "Tri Every Angle," 2005
“In 'Tri Every Angle,' I looked for tessellating patterns for the ground and the sky and put people within this world which started with a grid of 5,120 triangles.”
4. "Common Grounds," 2009
“'Common Grounds' is a sphere done on the spot at a little coffee shop in Spearfish. The bottom shows the sphere on the table as a drawing. From this spot I was seeing the whole room around me. The regulars were put in the spots they always sat.”
5. "Parallel Universes," 2013
“'Parallel Universes' shows one cubicle stairs network going in all directions on the inside of the sphere and in the same space on the outside are trees, cliffs and another whole world all happening in the same space at the same time.”
6. "Rings of Time," 2014
“'Rings of Time' shows the Badlands of South Dakota. The geometry of concentric circles from the top to the bottom show where the strata layers come from. Time and erosion is what created this for us to see. It also shows the geometry of the Badlands.”
7. "Story Makers," 2008
“In 'Story Makers,' parents are reading to their children as the stories come to life around them. This is a fun environment filled with all kinds of creative animals. On the bottom of the sphere are some families reading books. The idea is that what they are reading is all around them. The stories have come alive. This environment is a good example of what can be done with the perspective system.”
8. "Flower of Life Building," 2024
“The Flower of Life geometry is what created this building. The north and south wall come out of the Flower of Life design. The rest of the building has to conform to that design.”
9. "Repeating Pattern," 2024
“This plays with the Ziggurat from early architecture and uses it for the interior of this building. A repeated pattern.”
10. "Hide Your Tracks," 2024
“There is a confusion how these cubical forms fit together. That is hiding a very systematic structure that is going on. Each of the different colors will make a tetrahedron. There are five of these tetrahedrons organized in a very special way. The vertices of the five tetrahedron go the vertices of a dodecahedron. Each of the points of the dodecahedron hold a different tetrahedron.”
11. "Goofy Bird," 2023
“'Goofy Bird' came out of looking at the Rhombic Dodecahedron on the sphere. The bird shares his eyes with the neighboring bird giving us four birds on the sphere. I used a pointillist style of painting to bring out the color.”
12. "Hands of Unity," 2008
“'Hands of Unity' has a substructure of two hands together. The people that come from these fingers are holding hands in the same way. The faces and the pots make up the fingernails of the hands. Two opposite color wheels come together in this piece also.”
13. "Drippings Dreams," 2015
“'Drippings Dreams' was created by dripping paint down the sides of the sphere, then locating shapes and faces in the chaos and accentuating their forms. This is very subconscious so I have no idea what the meaning is.”
14. "About Face," 2012
“'About Face' shows faces and bodies moving from black to white. Just when you think you know what the positive space is, it will shift to the side, which makes the negative space positive space. This is a piece you can look at a long time and never see it all.”
15. "Arching to Infinity," 1990
“'Arching to Infinity' shows cubical structures curving into archways moving to infinity in two directions.”
16. "Life’s Ups & Downs," 2011
“In India, they used to have stairways like this that allowed people to get down to a water source. Some people work their way up through life's challenges and others don't leave their safe rooms at the bottom. Some people work their way up through life's challenges and others don't leave their safe rooms in the bottom.”
17. "Six Points to Infinity," 2016
“'Six Points to Infinity' is the purest form of six point perspective. All lines in this are greater circles. Where you are located the cubical forms are very large and in all six directions they go off to infinity.”
18. "The Globe Theater, London, England," 2006
“'The Globe Theater' shows Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London. The cylindrical theater with the small compartments holding the audience has small theatrical events going on in each section. Shakespeare's plays are ghost images in the center. It is fun to see how many of the plays you can identify.”
19. "Gargoyles in St. Denis," 2005
“'Gargoyles in St. Denis' shows the full scene of St. Denis in Northern Paris from the inside. The gargoyles have been brought inside from their home outside. I also show a sculpture of St. Denis that depicts his beheading because he brought Christianity to the French before they were ready for it.”
20. "Ocean Waves," 2020
“'Ocean Waves' was created after spending a month at Half Moon Bay in California the ocean was still in my mind. This piece grew from a geometrical system where a pentagon shifted, fits inside a pentagon. This was taken to infinity inside the first pentagon. It makes five wonderful spirals. I used the twelve pentagons of the dodecahedron over the surface of the sphere to make 60 spirals over the sphere. It really looked like the ocean waves I was seeing in the ocean at Half Moon Bay.”
21. "Arches," 2016
“'Arches' shows Spanish horseshoe arches that Termes played with along a floor while exploring a hexagon flower design. This design on the floor is projected to six points around the sphere’s horizon. The arches project up in a very organic way.”
22. "Fishing Around," 2021
“This is a painting on a silk screen. You are in a bowl and the fish are all around you. You see what the fish see all around them.”
23. "Politically Correct," 2012
“In 'Politically Correct,' the same shape makes up the donkey (Democrats) as well as the elephant (Republicans). The elephants show on the inside and the donkeys show on the outside of the transparent sphere. Both were painted on the outside of the sphere.”
24. "Parts of the Whole," 2017
“'Parts of the Whole' explains one through six point perspective by using artists with different perspectives drawing from the scene around them.”
25. "Dakota Sphere," 1981. SDAM Collection, 2018.06. Gift of the Estate of Mac and Jane Haskell.
26. "Behind the Forest," 2006
“'Behind the Forest' is a forest with a landscape and animals behind the trees. In the open spaces between the trees you can look at the landscape and animals that are painted on the inside of the trees. All of this is painted on the outside of the sphere, the animals first and the trees second after a lot of white paint was used in between them.”
27. "Concavex Room," 2019
“'Concavex Room' is a hemisphere that uses both the concave and the convex sides to show one complete room. It is fun because I always talk about conceiving the world around me on the inside of the sphere but I paint it on the outside. In this case, half of the room is seen from the inside and the other half is seen from the outside. Sometimes when looking at it, it is hard to know if it is the concave or convex you are looking at.”
28. "Hidden Persuaders," 2021
“This sphere shows how you have a choice of what you see in the middle section of the sphere. You either see black arrows or white arrows. As you move to one pole or the other I control what you see. I make you see just the black or just the white on the other side. I do this by changing the shape of the black arrows design, I make it more organic which makes the white arrow disappear. The same if done on the other pole but makes the white arrow alone show up. This I think is a lot like modern media where one side leans one way and the other news channel leans the other way. Both tend to warp the news to fit their philosophy.”