Wood is the soul of Andreas Senoner’s artworks. With this “living material,” as he describes it, and in combination with other organic elements such as feathers, lichens or fabric, the Italian artist creates figurative sculptures which explore metamorphosis, memory and self.
Senoner was born in Bolzano, northern Italy. He trained at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, and the Fine Arts Faculty at Valencia Polytechnic University in Spain, exploring media such as painting, photography and performance art before settling on wood as his preferred artistic material. In 2006 he as awarded a scholarship to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, USA, where he developed his wood carving skills with the artist, Kinji Akagawa.
For Senoner, wood serves as a collector of memories, a visual repository where the pass of time is expressed in knots and grain. His sculpted figures are often shown in states of transition, hybrids somewhere between plant life and human. Others, meanwhile, stand isolated or are seated, hanging mid-air from the wall, as if waiting for change to occur. Self-portraiture is another element of Senoner’s work, with the Heritage series from 2017 featuring carved depictions of the artist himself and works referencing memories of childhood.
Senoner’s contemporary wooden sculptures have featured in exhibitions across Italy, including at the MuSa / Salò Museum, Palazzo Monti in Brescia and the National Museum of Musical Instruments, Rome, as well as in USA, France and Switzerland. He has completed artist residencies in Serbia, Italy and France, participated in the Venice Biennale 2011, and received numerous awards including the Premio Ora, Premio Cramum and the Enegan Art Prize.
