Interview with Pontus Willfors

By Daniel Rolnik On August 28, 2011

Pontus Willfors is a powerful sculptor/photographer that is blending the line between man and nature. I first stumbled into his studio during the Venice Art Walk and was taken away with a massive sculpture in the center of the space. After viewing his other work I thought ok, we have to interview this dude, he’s gonna be huge! We met Pontus at his studio in Venice Beach, CA [that he's recently moved out of for a bigger location] where we talked gravity, process, and Sweden…

Daniel Rolnik: Where are you from?

Pontus Willfors: I’m from Sweden.

DR: Why the theme of nature in your work?

PW: I’m interested in the differentiation between nature and culture and where they intertwine. I like the line where nature becomes a little blurry. I like to think of questions like When does it become a tree? Is it a tree when it just looks like one?

DR: Is this giant sculpture made from found pieces of wood?

PW: The wood is from a house that was torn down in the Pacific Palisades. The top parts of the sculpture are actually the leftover pieces from making the bottom half.

DR: Did you go to the demolition site to gather the scraps?

PW: I bought it from a nonprofit named The ReUse People, they’re a company that recycles wood. It’s a pretty cool place since it’s a win-win situation. You donate your house or construction materials to them and they give you a tax write-off.

DR: How old was the house these pieces of wood come from?

PW: Some of these parts are probably from the 30’s or 40’s. You can tell because of the shape. If you go to Home Depot today and buy two-by-fours, which is what the sculpture is made from, the wood will have rounded corners and is actually only 1 ½”x3 ½”, not 2” by 4”. The older wood have square corners and actually have the dimensions two inches by four inches.

DR: How many pieces do you think are just in this upper cube part?

PW: There are over 30 layers and each layer could have up to 50 pieces, which would make it about 1500 pieces. But, it’s probably more than that.

DR: Did you hand-carve everything in this giant sculpture?

PW: One by one and then it’s all stacked – there’s no glue or adhesive.

DR: How is it staying together then?

PW: Gravity.

DR: Really!!! There’s no glue holding it together or screws?

PW: No. None whatsoever.

DR: How do you move it?

PW: I have numbering system which I write on the bottom of each piece – it would look something like this “17-9”. The first number “17” is the vertical layer, and then the second number is how many pieces across it is. The top will look slightly different every time I rebuild it, but you essentially get the same idea.

DR: How long does it take to assemble?

PW: It takes about three hours. I build the original version myself, but I bring some people with me when I move it. I like to do things alone, it’s practical.

DR: Were you a fan of Jenga as a kid?

PW: I don’t think I ever played it as a child. I never thought about Jenga while I was working, but other people have. I guess the sculpture is like Jenga though, because if a piece doesn’t come out easily then it’s part of the structural support and therefore you shouldn’t take it out or the whole thing will collapse.

DR: Where did you take the pictures of cracks in the sidewalk?

PW: They were all taken in Venice. The one over there is from a block up the street. The lines represent the same lines that divide up the concrete and they’re spaced the same distance apart as each real-life concrete slab.

DR: Did you go to school for sculpture?

PW: I actually went to study photography at CalArts, but ended up mostly doing sculpture.

DR: What brought you from Sweden to CalArts?

PW: Oddly enough, I was living in the US and working in the finance industry for 10 years before I went.

DR: So you went to art school later in life?

PW: Yeah, I was working for a company that invested in the oil and gas industry.

DR: Did you make a killing?

PW: I can still live off the savings to some degree, but I don’t live in a big mansion.

DR: Were you doing art the whole time?

PW: Not really. I lived in Houston for 3 years before I came to LA. I had taken some photo classes there and felt I had some interest in it. There was a natural break at one point in my career so I moved here to Los Angeles with my wife. I stopped doing finance when I moved and took some sculpture and photography classes at SMC, OTIS, and Art Center. Then I wanted to apply for a full-time program and felt it was important to go to a school that was conceptually orientated like CalArts because I needed that push in my work.

DR: These aren’t actually trees right?

PW: I carved off the bark and each piece to make it look like it’s a tree. I started in the middle and then sort of worked myself out They’re all random pieces because they’re from different trees.

DR: How did you make it blend into each other?

PW: I mostly used the organic shape already and just made it thinner at times so it could blend. I shave it all down with an axe.

DR: Do you have a form you keep it in to hold the shape?

PW: Yeah, it’s the same when I stack the pieces for the larger sculpture. It’s just sort of a plywood box.

DR: What’s going on in these photographs?

PW: They are my childhood pictures from Sweden. I’ve replaced all the people in the images with myself, so I’m the child as well as the grownup. I had a friend of mine photograph me in approximately the positions people had in the photographs and then I used Photoshop to make it seamless.

DR: Is there a meaning behind it to you?

PW: It took us some time for my wife to get pregnant and so it’s about fatherhood. I feel as though maybe it was also about longing for childhood and about having to become more responsible.

DR: Do you ever go back to Sweden?

PW: I go back once a year maybe.

DR: Did you grow up in a part of Sweden that was dark all winter long?

PW: Not completely. At the worst we had 5 hours of sunlight

DR: That’s it?

PW: The sun would be up, but at a low angle. So, even when it’s sunny you don’t feel the same as you do in California because it’s just not enough light coming at you. And then in the summer you get the opposite, it’s light until about 10:30pm and is only dark for about 4 hours. In the Northern part of Sweden you have the midnight sun and then several months of complete darkness.

DR: Did you build all these ventilation tubes in your studio?

PW: Yeah, It’s a vacuum that allows me to get rid of all the sawdust. I bought it as a kit. If you want to hear it we better close the door.

[Pontus turns on the vacuum that is located in the bathroom of his studio]

DR: Whoa! It’s crazy loud.

PW: Try to open this door – you won’t be able to. It’s very efficient. You just hook up these pipes to suck up all the sawdust. I leave it in one spot if I’m sanding.