Texturing Ireland's Mythology
Holger Lönze's sculpture continues a long tradition of realism in German art, the context, however, is Ireland’s rich maritime culture and archaeology. A recurring reference is the curach - a metaphor for a tradition that combines simplicity of form with an ethos of sustainability. Both its elegance and the rich lore and history connected to its use have found their way into Holger's sculpture. Drawing on literary voyagers and wanderers like Bran, Brendan and Suibhne, the intricately modelled, often therianthropic half man, half animal figures have taken on a restlessness, often with no aim and destination in sight - not even the illusionary otherworld they set out to find. At times these lone travellers meet and intersect with other travellers also wandering through life. In his work, the intersection of form is a way of exploring form and time through sculpture, an important and individual element of his formal language which developed out of Holger's research into time in sculpture. For Holger, the concept of voyage remains also significant in a global context where current environmental and social uncertainties could force cultures to move again; to unknown destinations, like a lone restless figures passing through time. Boats and birds, bells and waves, wings and wind - all are recurring images in Holger's work, metaphors for human restlessness and desire to journey into the unknown.
