Stephan Balkenhol
b. 1957
Stephan Balkenhol was born in 1957 in Fritzlar, Germany. He lives and works in Karlsruhe, Germany and Meisenthal, France.
Balkenhol studied at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg from 1976-82. His focus on the human form and his intention to reintroduce figuration into contemporary art was a divergent response to the abstract, minimalist and conceptual approaches of the school during the 1970s.
Balkenhol’s anonymous figures are painted in simple colour combinations that appear timeless yet familiar, both living and inanimate. They retain the grooves, cracks, chips and fissures that represent the sculpting process, demonstrating the artist’s raw and spontaneous treatment of the material. Balkenhol’s process advances the longstanding tradition of woodcarving in Germany, inviting comparisons to expressionist sculptors such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Ernst Barlach.