Sculptor turns chainsaw marks into fleeting wooden moments

Sculptor Heiko Börner is showing wooden works that capture fleeting moments at the fortress in Tittmoning, Upper Bavaria, BR reports. The highly delicate sculptures resemble images taken by a high-speed camera, despite being made with heavy woodworking tools.

Börner, a trained wood sculptor from Thuringia, says he likes to describe himself as a sculptural photographer. Rather than photographing real objects, he creates snapshots of scenes that exist only in his thoughts.

He first sketches his ideas on paper and also makes animated films, including one showing a ball striking a solid wooden block and deforming the material. He then preserves a tiny moment from that process in a wooden sculpture.

“What I later do in the wood is also a form of drawing,” Börner told BR. He creates graphic traces and networks with woodworking tools, producing what he describes as a three-dimensional drawing.

Wood determines the possibilities

The exhibition, titled “Zeitspiel,” is being held in the vaulted rooms of Tittmoning fortress above the Salzach river. The works appear so dynamic and fleeting that visitors may feel they will look completely different a second later.

Some pieces resemble paper art, while others look like a viscous mass of chewing gum that is flowing apart and about to tear. Börner says the sculptures depend on the possibilities offered by wood, including extremely thin outer edges that would not be possible in many other materials.

Different types of wood present different challenges. Oak and ash resist the tools differently from walnut and lime. Börner says the more dynamic a sculpture looks, the more physically demanding it is to create, particularly in areas that appear to show moving material.

Each object is made from a single piece of wood. Börner says he enters the material with an idea for a tense arrangement of forms and works the shape out from within the wood.

The exhibition “Zeitspiel” runs until October 3, 2026, at the fortress in Tittmoning. It is open from Thursday to Sunday, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.