Sebastian Stöhrer

Our latent tendency to see things through an anthropomorphic or zoomorphic filter gives us a first connection to the sculptural world of Sebastian Stöhrer. The orifices, the sometimes fleshy colours, beak-like protuberances, and the twiggy legs, all suggest forms we can relate to. Some potentially architectural attributes can be discerned too: windows, doors and cave-like cavities. One large tower of entwined forms has the kind of baroque formation you might associate with the labyrinthine structures of coral.

The occasional incorporation of twigs, branches, fungi and other woodland organic media weds the work to the Germanic predilection for a folkloric engagement with woods and forests which represents them as strange, magical places of liminality and transformation. In some instances these organic embellishments have a more mundane resonance, providing a simple support structure akin to the legs of a piece of rustic Adirondack furniture. While the range between the comic and the forms of some of Sebastian Stöhrer’s works bring to mind the surrealistic creations of Hieronymus Bosch (who incidentally was a wood dweller), seen collectively Stöhrers sculptures form a Forest of Earthly Delights.

But like the scientists on Solaris trying to understand the bio-geological phenomena found in the planet’s ocean, beyond some tentative familiarities Sebastian Stöhrer’s work exists in a formal realm of its own. To some extent his sculptures in part invent themselves. In the metamorphic crucible of the kiln, unknown and unforeseen outcomes occur. In particular the vitrification of the pre-fired, dull watery glazes creates such glorious, rare and precious stone like surfaces that it might be argued that what results is a true and tangible expression of alchemy.

Sebastian Stöhrer (b. 1968) lives and works in Frankfurt. Recent exhibitions include Lingen Kunsthalle, Lingen, Hallerstraße 6, Hamburg, Moderna Museet, Stockholm and Avlskarl Gallery, Copenhagen. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition at the gallery.