A hidden gem of metal mastery

Sometimes a community is like an oyster holding a pearl…you don’t know what you have until you check inside its walls. Enter the humble and humorous world of Richmond B.C. artist Lawrence Northey, and you have embarked upon an accelerated train ride through his “Imagineering.”

Northey’s ROBOTART takes out-of-time technology and refashions these artifacts into whimsical robotic sculptures. Each piece is a feat of engineering, starting with a cardboard pattern, testing for balance, assembling, disassembling and each part getting individually polished and assembled once again for the final product.

Northey has won numerous gold, silver and best-of awards for his imaginative art, has been widely published in national and international magazines including Art Scene International(2008) and Architectural Digest (2004, Russia), and has been commissioned for his individualized robot-sculptures by clients throughout North America.

Locally, Northey has shown his imaginative art in a ground breaking exhibition in 2006 at the Richmond Art Gallery. Currently, he is working towards a future publication in which he will storyboard the fantastic world of his many robot characters. This is something we can really look forward to seeing!

Northey is undoubtedly sitting at the cusp of international recognition. Get to know him and his work before he rockets from community “imagineer” to robot superstar! You can view his amazing smorgasbord of metallic “Imagineering” at on his website and contact him at lawrence@robotart.net.