“I think what I’m interested in is telling stories. It’s portraiture, but it’s a vehicle for telling a particular story… the way in which society makes people who they are… As soon as you make a figure, it has an identity.” 

Claudette Schreuders’ figures are often solid, stocky forms, straight-backed, facing forward. It is a stance that seems to recall the blocks of wood from which they are carved. Says Schreuders, wood, unlike clay, “dictates to a large degree what the thing is going to look like. It has its own energy.” She finds that the the subtractive process of carving offers a certain lack of control that she enjoys: a sense of a direction already given, and a resisting material to work against.

Schreuders is able to create a sense of something eternal out of seemingly everyday and personal moments – yet also with a gentle humour, and a sense of honesty.