Thomas Junghans

Discourse VII

Junghans (1956, Recklinghausen) creates abstract sculptures in stone, wood and bronze, mostly torsos and primal portraits, in a primitive, cubic and expressionistic imagery. He also paints and makes ink drawings. His sculptures are monumental and robust of character. Thomas lets the material of the statues speak for itself: the figures and heads seem to have gotten their form by only a few striking hacks. Nothing is less true. Thomas speaks of a ‘controlled sort of drunkenness’ as a state of mind when he works. Everytime when he works, he has to overcome a sort of paralysis. Because he knows, as a sculpturor, that if he does something at the wrong moment, that it can happen that he messes up the special tension or composition, or even worse destroy it. With their natural grace, his sculptures, represent somewhat an archaic, unknown nature. His way of working points back at the original shapes, where not reality is the inspiration, but imagination. This way he emphasizes the indepent character of the sculpture. .