Walter Schembs – Info

Walter Schembs was born in Worms in 1956. Inspired by his vocational training as a cabinet maker and furniture restorer, he started carving wood sculptures as of 1985. His bond with Nature and his determination to realise his creativity paved his path to becoming an artist. He is a co-founder of the triennial art event “Blickachse Worms” and in 2005 he was awarded the Art Prize of the Town of Walldorf.

 

The central focus of his sculptural oeuvre is the human figure. Working on the basis of the shape of the human body, Walter Schembs creates typecast, but highly individual figures, imbuing their faces with a very special character.

 
The artist works with wood spontaneously, without preparing any preliminary drawings. The roughly cut surfaces of his sculptures communicate a kind of archaic primitiveness and at the same time the artist’s passion for his material. Walter Schembs uses oak wood in particular very frequently, especially because its special wood grain and structure infuses surfaces with an unexpected and fascinating expressiveness in forever new ways.

Since 1998, Walter Schembs has also worked with cast bronze, which makes it possible for his sculptures to be mounted outdoors as well. In the process, he transfers the structure and grain of the wood to the surface of the bronze, thus achieving a fascinating tactile perception of the surface of the material. The viewer invariably longs to touch the sculpture in order to physically experience the actual material.

 
Many of his works are on display in public spaces, among other things in Finland, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg.