Rick Bach likes to say he was born an artist—and judging by a lifetime spent drawing, building, and experimenting, it’s hard to argue otherwise. Growing up just outside Zelienople Pennsylvania, he was surrounded early on by creativity through his father’s auto body shop, where custom paint work sparked an appreciation for craft, surface, and bold visual expression. After graduating from Seneca Valley High School in 1979, Rick went on to maintain strong ties to the local arts community, returning over the years as a guest speaker for the school’s secondary art students.

Restless in the best possible way, Bach works across an expansive range of media, from works on paper and aluminum painting to metal fabrication, woodworking, and countless sketchbooks filled with ongoing visual experiments. His work is instantly recognizable throughout the Pittsburgh area, having appeared in tattoo studios, beloved local venues like Jack’s Pub in the Southside and the Smiling Moose in Cranberry, and across Mad Mex locations throughout the region. At the core of Rick’s practice is a desire to entertain and provoke—pushing the line between the conventional and the absurd, and questioning the boundary between what is functional and what is intentionally useless. He currently resides in Washington, DC, while continuing to maintain a studio and creative presence in the Pittsburgh area.