Created by artist Richard MacDonald for the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, Flair Across America celebrates the triumph of the human spirit and the idealization of the human form. While its message is universal, Flair Across America also embodies the Olympic credo stated by the father of the modern-day Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, “The essence lies not in the victory, but in the struggle.” Epitomizing the energy that MacDonald devotes to his monuments, the artist brought together gold-medal Olympic athletes to tour with the monument, including Kurt Thomas who popularized the gymnastic movement called The Flair. The Gymnast Eighth Life, Platinum commemorates the 20th Anniversary of the celebrated "Flair Across America" monument and tour from 1996.

Warm, silvery, and rare, the platinum patina of this distinctive series by Richard MacDonald creates a play of light that heightens our sense of the underlying sculpted form.  Contemporary in conception and limited to editions of only eight, with some works featured as one-of-a-kind, this body of work reveals the essential beauty of the human form.  As mercurial as human nature itself, light glances off the platinum creating dramatic shadows that seem to strengthen form and enhance the sense of life captured by the artist.  These works balance fidelity to nature with a poetic sense of metaphor: a balance that acts on the imagination to create a catalog of personal and individual meanings unique to each viewer.