Ranulf Streuff
Biography
"Five years after World War II, 1950, I was born in Bitburg, Germany. I grew up in rural surroundings. 1968 I finished high school and began to study physics in Bonn. But after 3 years I got ill and spent more than a year in hospital. I decided to learn fine arts, painting and sculpture. I finished as art teacher and 1978 I started teaching at the Domschule, a high school in Schleswig.
Until then I had designed and crafted some furniture, painted a lot and spent many month in the Scandinavian wilderness. Though I didn´t work in the open usually, nature and science were the sources of my inspiration. I started carving sculptures and got in contact with a local gallery run by Friedrich Könning. He encouraged me to get on with sculpture. I did so if family life and the teaching in school let me do so. Exhibitions followed, but after F. Könning died I didn't mind about marketing no more. I sold some works, but if not via internet most of my work remains unseen. I don´t have to make living with art. So I don´t care about business. I have ideas, let it grow and ripen, think about how to find a form representing it, and then I go to work. I love beauty, so it has to be full of it. Otherwise I love sometimes to provocate, to wake up, so it has to be sincere and truthful.
Since 2015 when I retired from teaching I did about a hundred sculptures. There is no time to organize exhibitions. If people like my work I am fine. But since I know that many do I just work on. I´m not a business man. I create things out of my mind. That´s all."
Artist Statement
Through my work, I want to convey the beauty, affection, originality, and power that I also experience in music. Like a musician, I see myself as an artist on a journey toward ever-new horizons, in constant development and open to new challenges.
Musician, 2020, elder wood, 51 x 27 x 21 cm
Guardian Spirit, 2023, oak wood, 53 x 23 x 21 cm
The Girl Catches The Ball, 2024, robin wood, 112 x 160 x 39 cm
Gravitation, 2016, maple root wood, 38 x 23 x 17 cm
Venus, 2019, walnut wood, 69 x 23 x 24 cm
Downwind, 2015, apple wood, 47 x 22 x 13 cm
Flame, 2023, robinia wood, 86 x 31 x 21 cm
Freedom of Thought, 2016, elder wood, barbed wire, 44 x 19 x 21 cm
Woman With Bowl, 2016, walnut wood, 42 x 13 x 13 cm
Child Soldier, 2017, oak wood, 64 x 20 x 14 cm