About the Work
This bronze sculpture has a gnarled look suggesting natural growth, but its fragile form and upward reach lend it a certain elegance. The unsteady multi-membered structure, with a round shape supporting a tapering one, merely hints at flesh and bones. Rather than the rationality of modern art, Höckelmann opted for the principles of pre-modern, Baroque formal languages. The gestural element and the exuberant natural growth transform the volumes into the fissured “skin” of the cast bronze. It is the expression of a living, dynamically creative process.