Ernst Gamperl
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BIOGRAPHY
Ernst Gamperl won the inaugural Loewe Craft Prize (2017) in recognition of his masterful craftsmanship. His work has been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The Loewe Foundation in Madrid, Fonds National d’Art Contemporain in France, Musée des Arts Décoratifs de la Ville de Lausanne in Switzerland, Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum in Munich, Collection Issey Miyake in Tokyo, and the Amorepacific Museum of Art in Seoul. Exhibition highlights include his touring solo exhibition Dialogue with Wood, which opened at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur in Switzerland (2019), followed by a solo presentation at the Korean Craft Museum (2020), and Das Lebensbaumprojekt currently on view at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich (2025), and will open at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg (2025). He has also exhibited at leading international fairs including Design Miami, PAD London, FOG Design+Art in San Francisco, and Masterpiece London.
Master craftsman Ernst Gamperl has revolutionised the practice of wood turning by developing entirely new modes of working that push it to its technical limits. The artist principally uses the mighty European Oak tree and carefully selects his immense logs from sustainable sources – either from trees that could not stand their ground against the wind or were felled due to decay.
Ernst turns the oak when it’s green and supple, to work in dialogue with the wood before arriving at a final shape; he is an expert in its drying properties and prophetically reads its movement as the sculpture finds its undulating form. The artist eschews uniformity and celebrates the imperfections present in the material, which tell the story of the tree’s momentous life and energy; the curved edges and bulges, the projections and indentations that emerge out of the natural deformation of the wood are an essential part of Ernst’s design. The immanent expressive power of the material is underscored by Ernst’s treatment of the surfaces: waxing and polishing, scrubbing out the streaks or carving filigree parallel grooves like velvet, contrasting smooth and shiny areas with rough-hewn, deeply scarred sections. These enriching elements draw us ever closer to the piece; the profundity of the work lies in Ernst’s ability to mine the emotional resonance that lies within the wood.
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Works
Ernst Gamperl
61/2019/100, 2019Cherry109 H x 31 dia cm
42.9 H x 12.2 dia inFurther images
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