Italian artist Peter Demetz has a gift for breathing life into wood, a material that seems hard and lifeless to most of us. His wooden sculptures of people which vary in size from about 20 inches to nearly 50 inches tall, feature men, women, and children standing are flawlessly life-like.
In addition to the stunning meticulousness of his craft, Demetz’s sculptures are also conceptually intriguing. The figures’ backs are often turned away from us as they stare at the ground. It’s here that we’ve caught them in contemplative, in-between moments, like before you begin to speak or just as you’re about to enter a room. As a result, Demetz’s works feel poignant. They aren’t necessarily sad, but their body language evokes a sense of longing, loss, or a fleeting period in time.
