STEPHAN BALKENHOL no title, 1993

Stephan Balkenhol is a renowned sculptor famous for his hand carved sculptures of anonymous human figures. His tall pedestal styles of carved sculptures are normally created from a single block and depict simple, plain colored figures that appear confident but unassuming in pose. Balkenhol’s style has gained large public commissions and the installation of his work in the front of the Blackfriars Bridge in London and the entrance of the Hamburg Zoo. He studied art at the Hamburg School of Fine Arts and his first wooden sculptures of a larger than life naked man and woman put his work focus on human figures. He later branched into hybrids and animals and also practices drawings and photographs. Balkenhol uses a chisel and a hammer to forge his figures from tree trunks and leaves traces of the tool marks visible in the wood. He also leaves the natural knots, grains and cracks from the tree trunk remain in the finished art. Balkenhol uses paint to put structure to the sculpture and show the anatomy which does not heighten the figure's expressiveness. His presentations of contemporary figures are either free standing or reliefs in wood and depict the everyday man or woman. Balkenhol's sculptures are striped of any personal content allowing the viewer to project his own image onto them. Less

Stephan Balkenhol is a renowned sculptor famous for his hand carved sculptures of anonymous human figures. His tall pedestal styles of carved sculptures are normally created from a single block and depict simple, plain colored figures that appear con More