Willy Verginer is an Italian sculptor, living and working in Val Gardena. The work engages with ecological and environmental issues we are faced with in our contemporary world. His work often explores the ambiguous relations between Man and Nature, and more importantly our responsibility as humans to respect, protect and preserve the natural world.
Verginer has been enticing collectors around the globe for decades with his striking life-sized sculptures; his pieces are often characterized by a systematic use of acrylic paint that is applied in opaque linear bands. This installation is an ongoing project for Verginer - the first edition was shown at the Venice Biennale in The scene depicts a series of bathers that seem transfixed, as though they are waiting in anticipation for something to happen, leaving the viewer in the same state of unknown.
Yes, you're right: these surreal sculptures do look like they've been carved from stone or moulded from some kind of plaster. But incredibly, they've all been sculpted from wood alone. They're the creation of Willy Verginer, a year-old Italian artist who lives and works in Ortisei BZ, South Tyrol, and whose works are located in numerous private and public collections, both Italian and international.
Willy Verginer is nowadays considered one of the leaders of magic realism. His distinctive style has garnered him much attention, and his works have been exhibited around the globe. Worked in the round in full relief, the sculptures rise up from their mass and material weight into their surrounding space. Italian artist Willy Verginer depicts our evolving relationship with nature in these adolescent sculptures. Willy Verginer's half-dipped, wooden sculptures create a visual contrast that highlight environmental issues at the hands of human manifest destiny.
Verginer's work plays off human innocence and the ensuing corruption, while examining our effects on nature at the hands of moral shortfalls. Verginer sculpts his pieces using locally grown wood, while finishing with a strategic placement of paint. By using a dark color like black paint, the artist shows depictions of environmental destruction as objects like oil begin to encroach on a beautiful but tragically unaware deer.
