Giraffe

In Giraffe, 2000, a sweet and awkwardly charming baby giraffe stands atop an Brancusiesque pedestal. The giraffe and the base are roughly the same size and equally emphasized. The uncomplicated animal with a compelling doe-eyed gaze represents all that is natural. Opposingly, the pedestal refers to Modernist traditions and the intellectual realm. To press the point, the pedestal exists exclusively as an idea since Balkenhol has carved the giraffe and her base of a single block of wood, inverting the traditional utility of a base. This provocative visual paradox goes to the heart of Stephen Balkenhol's fascination with the innate world contextualized by an environment of human consciousness.