Bjarne Jespersen

Part time artist
Naestved, Denmark

I use creative geometry to bring new life to old traditions of "magic woodcarving", i.e. the art of carving a piece of wood into parts that are loose, but cannot be separated. Traditional examples are wooden chains and balls in cages, as seen in such items as Welsh love spoons and European wool winders.

Great Tetraknot
Great Tetraknot
95 x 95 x 95 mm
Wood (elm)
2002

A compound of four trefoil knots oriented as the faces of a tetrahedron. Its symmetry is that of the tetrahedron, but without mirror reflections.

Memento mori
Memento mori
50 x 50 x 71 mm
Wood (briar)
1981

The traditional ball in cage theme is combined with a classical motif from renaissance art and inspiration from Japanese netsuke carvings. The cage is a rhombic dodecahedral edge frame.

Double Star
Double Star
45 x 45 x 45 mm
Wood (pear)
1974

Two cubic edge frames are tied together with a half twist to each pair of edges, then reshaped to resemble Keplar's Stelle Octangula, the well known compound of two regular tetrahedra.