Alexa is among the pieces by Bruno Walpoth at the ongoing Beijing show.[Photo provided to China Daily]

"For the first three years at the academy, I shunned wood in my work," Walpoth says, "because I feared that I would be drawn back into the paradigm of thinking and creating what I had learned at my hometown studios".

But once when he wanted to complete a male figure during a summer vacation, he could find no better material than a tree trunk. It was then that he knew wood would be an integral part of his work in the future, too, only with the forms and approach of contemporary sculpting.

After graduation, Walpoth returned to Groden to teach at art schools while he built his own studio. He continued with the figurative approach, insisting on modeling after real people, although the style was then considered "outdated and abstract, and conceptual art was in fashion", he says.

He also tried an abstract style and carved on other materials. But it only reinforced his belief that sculpting wood figurines was "the best way to express" himself, Walpoth adds. He bore in mind that his professors at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, had encouraged him to persist with what he wanted to do, saying that figurative art would one day "be back".