3-part commissioned piece,
The Triathlete Wood: Basswood Size: Lifesize
Biker Head
Biker Arms
3-part commissioned piece,
The Triathlete Wood: Basswood Size: Lifesize
The Runner
3-part commissioned piece,
The Triathlete Wood: Basswood Size: Lifesize, belonging to a man in the 6' range
Steff Rocknak: Figurative Wood Sculpture
About the Work
Although I was born and raised in the United States, there
is no doubt that my sculpture has been significantly influenced
by my trips to Europe. In fact, having been trained as a painter,
I may not have started sculpting had it not been for the semester
I spent in Rome in 1987—or at the very least, it may
have taken me longer to realize that I prefer three dimensions
over two. While there, I was especially impressed by traditional
marble sculpture, particularly, the work done by three classical
giants: Michelangelo, Dontatello and Bernini. But never once
did I entertain the (currently popular) idea that their work
is superficial, trivial, or even trite, primarily because
it has been so popular, particularly with the masses. So,
quite content with the vulgar appeal of representational sculpture,
I returned to the U.S. and began working in wood, which was
the only medium available to me; I made “George”
at this time. But in the back of my mind, I was certain that
I would eventually work in some kind of stone. However, over
the next few years, I grew attached to the warmth and unpredictability
of the wood. I was hooked.
Seeing a Jewel Hang in Ghastly Nights Wood: Maple Size:
TBA
Seeing a Jewel Hang in Ghastly Nights Wood: Maple Size:
TBA
Seeing a Jewel Hang in Ghastly Nights Wood: Maple Size:
TBA
This shouldn’t surprise me since I have
been around woodworkers for as long as I can remember—while
growing up, my mother meticulously refinished countless pieces
of antique furniture and for a while, my father worked as
a professional carpenter (as well as an art teacher). My grandfather
also had a wood shop at his boat yard (Rocknak’s Yacht
Basin) in Forked River, New Jersey. In between swinging on
the travel lift and sniffing around the docks, my brothers
and I would sneak into his shop and create giant piles of
saw dust and then blow them up with a bike pump, volcano style.
My brother Russ still has the wood robot that he made during
this time. And after my family moved to Maine in 1972, I was
fortunate enough to get to know Ted Hanks, a master bird-carver.
I especially remember picking up a life-size body of one his
birds before the wings were attached and thinking, how did
he do this?
A Day Spent in Front of the Mirror;
Something to do With Being Terrified (she's still running)
I returned to Europe in 1997 for a four-month
fellowship at the Institüt fur die Wissenschaft vom Menschen
in Vienna, Austria. During this period, I primarily worked
on my Ph.D. thesis in philosophy, but during my free time,
I cruised most of the museums in Vienna, where I was exposed
to Germanic Medieval wood sculpture for the first time. Although
I am not religious, I was especially impressed by a small
Christ figure in the Kunstkammer section of the Kunsthistorisches
Museum: (“Dead Christ”) by Zacharias Hegewald (1596-1639;
Dresden). I also had the opportunity to see an exhibition
of a carved wood alter (1509) at the Österreichen Galarie
Belvedere. In both cases, I was shocked by the degree of detail
and emotional integrity; these artists had pushed figurative
expression in wood to a level that I had never seen before.
While in Vienna and with this tradition in mind, I carved
“Old Man.”
Just a couple of years later (1998-99), I was
fortunate enough to receive a DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer
Austauschdients) to study Heidegger with Dr. Heribert Boeder
in Osnabrück, Germany. While there, I saw a lot of Medieval
wood sculpture, particularly in Lüneburg’s Town
Hall, which is filled with fantastically detailed pieces dating
back to the 1500’s. I also took in a Dürer exhibit
at St. Marien-Kirche in Osnabrück. With these influences
in mind, (as well as Hegewald’s “Dead Christ”)
I completed two small sculptures while in Osnabrück:
“The Crucifix” and “The Philosopher.”
Not only was I trying to recreate the Medieval detail in these
pieces, but the passion as well; one does not have to be religious
to understand the emotion that drives it. And as far as the
christ-figure is concerned, I have always been fascinated
with models (idols) of self-perfection that, when taken to
extremes, seem to inevitably promote acute disappointment
or acute denial. In fact, this dichotomy drives much of my
poem, “Marge and Grace”—written when I traveled,
worked and drew through South-East Asia in 1988. It was only
natural then, that I would make my own christ-figure some
10 years later. I was also interested in developing a forced
perspective with the background faces of “The Philosopher,”
as Dürer does so successfully with the architecture in,
at least, Antonius vor der Stadt (1519) and Das Meerwunder
(1498).
Finally, as a philosopher, let me return to
my initial comments about the marble-carving giants, i.e.
Michelangelo, Bernini, Donatello; particularly, my remarks
concerning their popular appeal. I have to confess that I
am very suspicious (if not occasionally contemptuous) of gratuitous
intellectual complexity—an affliction that plagues academia
as well as the art world. As a result, some, but certainly
not all, conceptual art leaves me cold. So my figures, quite
intentionally, are immediate and obvious; ideally, they do
not need a theory to do their talking. And that’s precisely
why I haven’t spun out a theoretical artist’s statement
here, but instead, indulged myself in an autobiographical
account of my favorite influences. Eventually, I hope to crawl
out from under all of them, but not in attempt to destroy
the past, or to ignore it, but instead, to absorb it in a
way that makes it my own.
The Swimmer
Biker Arms
The Runner
Seeing a Jewel Hang in Ghastly Nights 
Seeing a Jewel Hang in Ghastly Nights 
