About

Rich Aybar

Richard Aybar is a New York–born sculptor and collectible design artist of Dominican heritage and the founder of RAWORKSHOP. His work centers on rubber, most often polyurethane — a petroleum-derived material through which he develops sculptural furniture, lighting, and vessels whose forms oscillate between utilitarian object and contemporary artifact.

Aybar’s work is preoccupied with time — not as theme but as material condition. Polyurethane accrues, settles, and hardens in ways that register the moment of making: air pockets, surface tension, the slow chemistry of cure. The resulting objects carry their own formation as visible evidence — and in a material whose origins run through rubber extraction, plantation labor, and the chemical industries of the twentieth century, that evidence is never entirely neutral. Aybar works in this residue without illustrating it, producing objects that persist, accumulate, and hold meaning across use.

His work has been presented internationally, including at Alcova during Salone del Mobile in Milan, Alcova Miami during Miami Art Week, and Collectible Design Fair New York, as well as in group exhibitions at Friedman Benda (New York), Carpenters Workshop Gallery (Los Angeles), and Cour (Antwerp). His first solo exhibition debuted during Miami Art Week in 2019, followed by a solo exhibition with Tiwa Select in 2025. Aybar lives and works between New York and Milan.