I admit it – I am easily overwhelmed by big things: art, objects, buildings, cities, crowds. Although often humbled by nature’s ability to create on a large-scale and just as often humbled by the skill and talent it takes to make large-scale art, I tend to gravitate more towards small objects, fragments, bits. . .

When I first saw Jae-Hyo Lee’s large wood sculptures it didn’t surprise me that while admiring them, not only was I impressed with the scale of the work and the fact that it is no small feat to bring one of these sculptures into being, but I also immediately saw each of these grand sculptures translated into a brooch, a pendant or a small vessel. The shapes are mostly familiar – but the surface patterns and textures – now wouldn’t they be something to see in jewelry? Hmmm. . .indeed.

Let’s go back to Lee’s incredible work. Most of the images here are from his portfolio of wood sculptures – when you visit his website don’t stop there. The Wood and Nails portfolio is equally compelling and there are 19 pages of studio images in addition to several other portfolios.

“He sees the world in a slightly oblique way, and has a gift for turning the familiar into the unfamiliar.

Almost all of us, at one time or another, have had the experience – perhaps when we have just woken up – of feeling completely disassociated from things that, at other moments, are perfectly familiar to us. A chair is not a chair. A table is not a table. It is, instead, a wholly alien object forcefully imported into an entirely unready consciousness.

What Lee Jaehyo offers, in fact, are opportunities for seeing the world anew, with the kind of innocence of vision that we associate with children’s play.” Art historian and critic Edward Lucie-Smith

Jae-Hyo Lee’s website

Life-sized sculptures that make whispers and hushed tones seem the only appropriate way to speak when looking at them.

Inspired by Japanese folklore, myths and dreams, Yoshimasa Tsuchiya carves each sculpture from wood then adds plaster and paint during the finishing process. Tsuchiya holds a Doctor of Fine Arts degree in Conservation, Classical Technique.

The image above shows raw wood blocks with drawings pinned to them, waiting to be cut with power tools. The same blocks of wood pictured below, now shaped, joined together and in the process of receiving hand-carved details.

The finished sculpture. Shhhhh. . .

Yoshimasa Tsuchiya’s website