Balancing Act

Stephan Balkenhol is a German sculptor working primarily in wood, creating figurative forms carved directly from timber that retain visible tool marks and the grain of the material. His figures, often life-scale or monumental, depict ordinary people in quotidian poses, rendered with a formal restraint that emphasizes the sculptural presence of the wood itself rather than narrative content. Since the 1980s, his practice has centered on the tension between the specificity of human gesture and the inherent abstraction of carved form.

Fritzlar, Germany