Bruno Walpoth‘s human figures created from limewood or walnut come about as a result of his meeting and dealing with models. On a scale of one-to-one, the bodies, lines and forms of the few young, gaunt men and the myriad of beautiful women take shape from the block of wood by means of his hands. Although Walpoth is attracted to producing concrete likenesses of body parts, such as a shoulder or ankle, and he is pleased with the successful outcome, his concern is not only for a hyper-realistic portrait of the person who stands before him: In his or her outward appearance, the model serves as a cover surface for implied projections. Granted, the facial features and body forms correspond to those of the models, but Bruno Walpoth reduces the strong individual characteristics of the personality in his sculptural representation – those that would constitute the individuality in the classical sense of the portrait.

Lisa Trockner