Wooden Wonders of Willy Verginer

Willy Verginer

Willy Verginer was raised in the Val Gardena region in Italy, surrounded by the summits, forests and Dolomite Mountains that which became an important influence in his work. As an adolescent, he began his fine arts education in painting and studied at the Institute of Secondary Art Education in Ortisei in Italy. However, his gravitation toward woodwork and sculpture would lead him to seek training in the latter discipline. While in school, he coupled his education by frequenting the studios of many sculptors in the valley of Val Gardena, renowned for its woodworking traditions since the eighteenth century. Although he successfully assimilated the artisanal and ancestral traditions of polychrome sculpture, and integrated the traditional vocabulary of the profession, his ambitions proved to be more vast, universal and contemporary.

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.The wooden sculptures of Willy Verginer are worked in full relief in the round. The sculptures of Willy Verginer rise up with all their mass, volume, and the weight of their material in the space they are placed in. The forms created by Willy Verginer seem concerned only with themselves and their own internal system of formal relationships and meanings. The sharp and embattled handling with which Willy Verginer provokes and caresses wood does not result in anything ancient. Willy Verginer does not make statues; he creates indeed images in action.

Once his naturalistic, near-life size wooden sculptures are carved, the artist adds eye-catching blocks of geometric colour using acrylic paint. It's an unusual but inspired approach that sets up a sharp contrast of styles within each piece, and makes these figures all the more mysterious and alluring.

Verginer’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions across Europe, notably at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lissone and at the Cavalese Contemporary Art Center in Trentino, both in Italy. His works are also found in many private collections in Europe, the United States and Canada.