German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol has made a name by depicting average men and women. His artworks - mostly wood sculptures, but also wood reliefs - portray the anonymous 'everyman', the so-called familiar strangers who have no specific stories to tell.
Balkenhol's art is unusual. Throughout history, people have been fascinated by idealised images of extraordinary stories. We worship statues of gods and goddesses, paintings of daring heroes and beautiful muses, photographs of flawless models. The extreme opposite can be equally seductive. The low-down and dirty aspects of society have also inspired plenty of art.
Balkenhol's art picks up a familiar yet obscure aspect of humankind. His rough-hewn portrayals of everyman and everywoman, each chiselled from a single block of wood, celebrate the humble, plain-looking nobodies abstracted from any particular contexts.
'When I started with my figurative sculpture, I tried to avoid any illustration of social or sociological, psychological or representative contexts,' Balkenhol says. 'I wanted to make quite an 'open' image, almost minimalistic, empty of any message but the figure itself. This should be no one, but could be anyone. It was never a portrait. It invites the person who looks at it to identify [with it].'
For his exhibition at Art Statements Gallery, the 50-year-old has created eight new wood reliefs and 22 charcoal drawings. Like his wood figures, the men and women in the reliefs wear nonchalant facial expressions, giving nothing away. These reliefs - 'fictive portraits', as Balkenhol calls them - can evoke both traditional and more modern portraiture.
Balkenhol applies the concepts and techniques of his sculptures to his wood reliefs. His treatment of the surface is raw; the skin is left unpainted. As the material retains its organic nature, it also brings out the unpretentious charm of the ordinary, bland-looking people.
