In earthen heaviness the sculptures of Walter Schembs present themselves, connected to the ground and at the same time relieved from it, searching and finding, looking upwards, just as if lifting off, almost floating on towards the stars.
Walter Schembs is a figurative sculptor who shapes his pictorial idea of being human in one exclusively chosen material: wood!
Almost only 10 years ago Walter Schembs entered the “stage” of art. His very first figure already stood out by originality, showing the distinctive hand of its creator from the very start.
Walter Schembs frequently works with finds, with wood which once had been functioning as a half-timbered house’s beam or as a threshold and now has expired. It is the unknown story behind these materials in which he is interested. Engraved signs, numberings, dates, weatherings, and supplements are furtherly stimulating his imagination. Before shaping his artistic creation, the material itself, regional fruitwood, but mainly oak or poplar, becomes his very source of inspiration. With a chainsaw, the central tool in working with wood, an axe, an adze, and a chisel, he works on the trunk or the find, injures it in an ambivalent proportion to the material, partially smoothens out, rips up and structures, seeking and finding the form in a dialogue. It seems as if Walter Schembs has internalized the idea of his figures, his figure type, so much, enabling him to work directly into the wood without any model or previous sketch. This also shows the harmonious interaction between craftsmanship and a clear artistic imagination.
In the simplicity of their existence his figures radiate inner harmony and are balanced between having their feet on the ground and their head in the clouds. This also may be the secret of Walter Schembs' success he scores with his figures: they convey, besides all storytelling, a meditative power to the people watching them.
