Sleepless Guardian of the Hearth

Description

Guardian of the Threshold: A Handcarved Abstract Surreal Olive Wood Sculpture

Working with this centuries-old olive root, I thought of Max Ernst’s “The Angel of the Hearth.” The angel in his painting is born of paper and paint — flat, flying, ready to vanish with a single brushstroke. Wood doesn’t allow for such fragility: it carries weight and holds its form in an entirely different way. This handcarved abstract surreal olive wood sculpture was born from that difference.

Watchfulness Instead of Chaos

I carved along lines that already existed in the trunk — sharp fractures, sudden turns, as if the tree had changed its mind several times about which way to grow. In these turns, I saw not chaos, but watchfulness: a creature that doesn’t sleep, because its task is to stand and watch.

Openings That Let the Light Through

I left the through-openings in the mass largely untouched — they were already ready-made caves inside the trunk, and I only widened them just enough for light to pass straight through instead of getting caught. These voids aren’t decoration. They’re the places where the guardian lets the world pass through it, instead of blocking it out.

Wood That Could Still React

The polish on the surface was no accident: beneath it emerged a dense network of veins, dark and branching like vessels — I wanted the wood to look not like dead material, but like something still capable of responding to touch.

Stone Holds, Wood Holds the Tension

I left the marble base deliberately cold and detached — the heavy, restless form above needed a support that wouldn’t try to compete with it. The stone simply holds; all the tension belongs to the wood.

Unresolved Vigilance

Walking around it, this handcarved abstract surreal olive wood sculpture refuses to be read in a single way: from one angle, the guardian seems to stare intently into the distance; from another, it curls inward, as if hiding from its own gaze. What mattered to me was not fixing one final pose, but leaving this creature in a constant, unresolved vigilance — exactly as a guardian on a threshold should be.

Additional information

Weight	21 kg
Dimensions	108 × 60 × 42 cm
Edition	1/1 — unique work
Technique	The sculpture is carved from the root of an old olive tree of considerable age, preserving its natural through-openings. The surface is polished. Mounted on a slab of marble.