Frau in gelben Shorts. 2019.
Wawa-Wood, in color.
Height: 56 cm (22 in). Including base: 166,5 cm (65,6 in).
More works from the collection are available in our Online Sale (ends December 15, 2024).

• Characteristic woodwork of high recognition value.
• The base puts the work at eye level with the observer and lends it an impressive spatial presence.
• Man is a central theme in Balkenhol's work. Not to represent the human being as a unique individual, but as an anonymous yet strangely familiar person.
• Using traditional tools such as gouges, carving knives and mallets, the figures are hewn and cut out of the wood.
• Balkenhol uses the classic form of wood carving and returns to the original technique of this genre.
• The artist juxtaposes the traditional technique with exceptionally contemporary apparel.

PROVENANCE: Galerie Löhrl, Mönchengladbach.
Hans Braun Collection, Baden-Württemberg (acquired from the above).


“My works are not portraits in a narrow sense, they do not represent anyone in particular, but they are also not just signs or symbols [..].”
Stephan Balkenhol, 1988, in a conversation with Rainer Krone, quoted in: ex. cat. “BINATIONALE”. Deutsche Kunst der späten 80er Jahre, Cologne 1988.

“I want everything at once: sensuality, expression, but not too much, liveliness, but no shallow banter, immediacy, but no anecdotes, wit, but no corny jokes, self-irony, but no cynicism. And first and foremost, a beautiful, silent, emotional figure that says a lot and nothing. The figure should transcend itself, tell about itself and about other things without contorting or grimacing.”
Stephan Balkenhol, quoted in: Hans Werner Schmidt (ed.), Stephan Balkenhol, Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig 2001, p. 2.