Stephen Walling

Piquante (Contemporary Vertical Wooden Wall Sculpture in Red and Burgundy)

2022

Stephen Walling demonstrates a trained eye with wall relief sculptures of colorfully painted wood strips and blocks, intricately carved and composed into graphic arrangements. Although Walling’s sculptures are crafted around a dedication to color and shape, his newest body of works reveals a shift in inspiration and evolution in-studio process. In earlier work, the artist took his cues from nature representational forms based on the shapes of trees, slopes of the Catskill mountains and even aerial views were most prevalent. He also experimented with photo-collage, pasting images of backlit forests on varying heights of wood. More recently, Walling has found increasing comfort in the possibilities of abstraction. Walling now follows a kind of ‘mind-map’, influenced by almost anything and everything, when creating a new sculpture.