It was an interest in history and mythology that enabled Widenfalk to chart a new and distinctive artistic course. The central material was stone – a material associated with timelessness, in whose interiors it is possible to follow the passage of time itself. Widenfalk’s fascination with bygone rituals and ancient myths is evident in each of his works. The individual objects frequently underscore the old adage that each stone has a work of art within it. Widenfalk’s approach is, in essence, archaeological – focused on the wonders hidden behind a stone’s surface, and which requires man’s hand to reveal. The subsequent head- and body-shaped fragments are evocative of holy artefacts unearthed from an old, long-forgotten shipwreck. And the word “fragment” is important here – the very incompleteness is what enables the viewer to imbue these forms with their own subjective imagination. So while Widenfalk creates scenes evocative of ruins, he also offers the viewer key points of reference. But the rest is up to the viewer to discern or evoke.
Thus, Widenfalk’s sculptures offer the viewer introspection – they are a mirror, thanks to which it is possible to find one’s own image within, as well as all that surrounds it. And because sometimes stones can often almost be weighed down by their own intrinsic memories, for the past few years, Widenfalk, under the artistic influence of his wife, has begun to work with an entirely new and different material, namely glass. For Widenfalk, this material has offered a liberating fresh lease of life to his sculptures. The resulting glass works, thus, evoke a kind of transparent memory, or smoothed-out flashes of bygone ideals. The viewer trying to reach out and touch them will watch these impressions shatter before they have even been fully comprehended…
