Stone Talk
by Athar Jaber | 27 July 2025
Happy birthday Eugène Dodeigne
Today marks the birthday of Eugène Dodeigne (1923–2015), one of my favourite stone sculptors of the 20th century. His works are intimate but powerful testimonies to the artist’s take on the human condition and evoke both archaic statuary and modern existential expressions. Beside the shapes he created, I particularly love how he deliberately left tool marks visible, emphasizing the physical act of carving and leaving a very expressive and personal presence on the stone surface.
There are plenty of images of his work online, but I ca me across two rare and insightful videos where Dodeigne speaks about his practice. You can watch them here and here.
Terra Secca
As I am currently struggling amidst the casting of a clay model (I hate casting), I recently came across this article on Christian Bolt, a sculptor who’s on a mission to resurrect “Terra Secca”, a lost Renaissance technique that was once used by the likes of Giambologna and Michelangelo for sculpting clay and preserve the work without casting or firing.
Bolt is currently working with scientists at ETH Zurich to reverse-engineer the original recipe, aiming to recover the lost technique.
Bomarzo
With all the monstrosities happening around us, I was reminded of the Gardens of Bomarzo, Italy’s 16th-century “Garden of Monsters.” Conceived by Pier Francesco Orsini and carved directly into volcanic stone, it’s an unsettling blend of allegory, grief, and architectural surrealism. Nothing about it aligns with Renaissance ideals of harmony and proportion. Instead, it offers giant heads, leaning temples, and cryptic inscriptions, sculpture as psychological landscape. Five centuries later, it still feels radically contemporary. This article offers a vivid glimpse into the garden’s history and eerie presence:
My latest Sculpture Vlog
t’s been over two years since I last shared a vlog from the studio. My life-shifting move to Abu Dhabi from Antwerp called for a long period of resettling, both personally and artistically. The past months have been about slowly allowing the work to resume its regularity and establishing a new rhythm which I think I’ve finally found. I hope to share these glimpses into my practice more regularly again.
Q&A
Do you have specific question around sculpture and stone carving? Submit your question here below and I’ll do my best to answer it in one of the next Stone Talk Newsletters.
I hope you enjoyed these points and that you learned something new.
Until next week,
Athar
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