Creating Marquetry Sculpture
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Five Thoughts Marquetry, 2007 Total area: 91 x 22 x 5 in. |
"In creating marquetry sculpture, I call upon my lifelong love of assemblage and classical drawing. My materials are exotic natural and dyed veneers that I fragment, assemble, and reassemble, and ultimately laminate over complex sculptural forms of my own devising. I consider the resulting imagery as personal narratives expressed in my own language and mode of communication.
Except for its logistical complexities, my use of this classical technique has little in common with traditional marquetry. As far as I know, marquetry has never before been used in contemporary sculpture. Though the process demands precision and focus, and is fraught with difficulty and frustration, the results are worth all the effort. To my eye, marquetry is unrivaled for sheer beauty, expressiveness, and visual drama."
Quoted from William Tunberg's introduction to his web site
from the section where he explains about his marquetry sculpture
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| Phoenix Marquetry 26 x 16 x 5 in. |
William Tunberg's academic background is similar to Silas Kopf's in that he first studied Architecture and was drawn into woodworking by way of Sculpture. He received his B.F.A., cum laude, in Architecture in 1964, followed by an M.F.A. in Sculpture in 1965, both from the University of Southern California.
"When I was 7 or 8 years old, I became fascinated with copying postage stamps. At about 11 or 12, I started copying art work that I found in magazines. My favorite artists at that time were de Chirico, Picasso, and Magritte. Influenced by these masters, I started painting original landscapes of the surrounding areas in Oregon where I lived. However, once I saw my first Ingres, my love for drawing the human form became an irrepressible force in my life.
William Tunberg
, with some material from original essays by M.C. Escher: In May 1940, the Nazi army invaded Holland and Belgium; Brussels and its suburbs were occupied on the 17th. At the end of May, Escher's mother died.
