Christian Burchard does not wait for wood to behave. He works with it while it’s still unstable, wet, and unpredictable, accepting whatever happens next as part of the process.
Born in Germany, Burchard trained as a furniture maker before moving to the United States in 1978. He studied sculpture and drawing at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, then continued his education at Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver. His early work leaned toward furniture and interior commissions, but over time his focus narrowed. The lathe became central. Sculpture took over.
What separates Burchard from most wood sculptors is his commitment to green wood. He frequently works with madrone burl, a material known for its density and volatility. Madrone twists, cracks, and distorts aggressively as it dries. Many woodworkers avoid it for that reason. Burchard does the opposite. He relies on those changes to finish the work for him.
Forms are turnedturned while the wood is fresh, then left to dry slowly. As moisture escapes, the surfaces pull inward, split open, or collapse asymmetrically. These movements are not corrected. They are the point. Burchard intervenes only when necessary, sometimes burning, bleaching, or carving to emphasize what the material is already doing.
The resulting objects often resemble bowls, vessels, serpents, boats, or loosely figurative shapes, but they resist easy classification. They look strained, tilted, and slightly off-balance, as if frozen mid-shift. Cracks run openly across surfaces. Edges buckle. Walls thin unevenly. Nothing feels decorative or resolved.
Burchard has lived and worked for many years in Northern California, where access to madrone and other native woods has shaped his practice. His work has been exhibited widely in the United States and abroad and is held in both private and public collections, including the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, and the Oakland Museum of California.
Despite this institutional recognition, the work itself remains stubbornly physical and process-driven. There is no attempt to smooth over risk or standardize results. Each piece carries the marks of drying, stress, and time passing.
In a moment dominated by digital fabrication and perfect repetition, Burchard’s sculptures feel almost confrontational. They insist on patience. They accept failure as structure. And they make a simple claim: wood does its most interesting work when you stop trying to control it.
