Wolfgang Stiller is a German artist that creates burnt matches sculptures. An idea to make us reflect about society nowadays and human behaviour.
Wolfgang Stiller works as an artist for quite some years now. He was born 1961 in Wiesbaden, relocated to Berlin after his studies of fine art in 1988. He have traveled the world and today he’s back in Berlin where it all began.
While living in Beijing several years ago German artist Wolfgang Stiller acquired several head molds and large pieces of wood. After experimenting with the various components the artist struck on an idea to create several large-scale burnt matches where the charred remains of each tip appeared as the face of a human, a series he calls Matchstickmen.
The artist leaves the meaning of the artworks open for interpretation as the pieces exist in a surprisingly strange area between morbid and humorous. At a distance each match seems almost laughable in its appearance almost like a toy bobblehead, but up close the somber, lifeless faces often resting in coffin-like matchboxes are pretty disconcerting.
Meet more wood artworks HERE!
Either laid to rest in their very own matchbox coffins or splayed about the exhibition space,
the blackened matches reference worn out – or more so burned out human beings.
The life-sized, burnt down matchsticks with human heads symbolize how we burn out and get left behind in a society that only focuses on economic growth, wealth and a stellar career.
