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Submitted: April 10, 2011
Image Size: 764 KB
Resolution: 1654×2014

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Make:Canon
Model:Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Shutter Speed:1/160 second
Aperture:F/16.0
Focal Length:67 mm
ISO Speed:100
Date Taken:Mar 15, 2011, 8:45:05 PM
Software:Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows
Sensor Size:10mm

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SPARTACUSby ~ayhantomak

Traditional Art / Sculpture / Surreal

SPARTACUS 2011 (Sculpture)
h66x56x48cm
Material: Hornbeam wood
This is a hornbeam tree which has been dried and stored for 3 years. It was cut and taken from the region
of Thrace in the Istranca Mountains. The wood statue was carved at my workshop in the Istranca Mountains. There
is no vernish on. Instead, linseed oil and shellac was applied.
***
THE INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITIONS OF SCULPTURE OBJECTS & FUNCTIONAL ART
Park Avenue Armory / NEW YORK
April 14-17, 2011

***
Photographer Mustafa Seven
***
Ayhan Tomak’s Birth of Spartacus from the Hornbeam Stump
Translated and Written by Sean David Hobbs (www.seandavidhobbs.com)

Last summer (2010) when I went to the local village wood-mill near my studio in the Istranca Mountains of Thrace,
I saw a giant hornbeam tree stump on the edge of the mill’s yard. Hornbeam is a very hard wood to cut and the chief lumberjack of the yard told me he was planning on throwing away the hornbeam.
Something about the huge misshapen stump spoke to me… or at least I felt an energy calling on me to create. The lumberjack gave me the hornbeam stump for free; rolling his eyes and saying that I would not be able to do anything with it.
I put the stump in the middle of my studio but I could not start working. Everyday I would pass the wood, stare at it and wait for inspiration to start carving. I had no idea what the wood would be. I never know. The wood of each project always tells me what it wants to be as I work.
Finally after a month of waiting I started to chisel the stump. In places the hornbeam was almost impossible to cut. The wood broke my chisel three times (which had never happened before)! In other places my chisel slid through the hornbeam easy and smooth. I began to realize the wood was sometimes strong and warlike and other times romantic and emotional.
It took me 7 months (August 2010 – March 2011) to finish this statue. As I finished the project I realized I was looking into the eyes of the great Thracian general, slave and liberator. The wood wanted to be Spartacus. The wood was Spartacus.