TELEPHONE:
ADDRESS:
Calle Gran Vía, 24 – 20001 San Sebastián
ACTIVITY
Antxon Mendizabal, known as “Mendi”, is an artist specialised in sculpting and carving wood. He makes sculptures, high reliefs, busts, portraits and imagery as well as traditional Basque furniture, clocks and coats of arms.
He has produced a great range of sculpture and shown his work… in exhibitions since 1988. His works are to be seen in the US (New York), Argentina (Trele), France (Paris and Mont-de-Marsan) and all over Spain: in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona and his homeland, the Basque Country.
He has taken part in many craft events and is registered with the Guipúzcoa Provincial Council as a master woodcarver, professionally since 1990. He has received various sculpture, painting and craft awards.
In his workshop and gallery he shows many of his sculptures, carvings and paintings, which have been documented in photos and digitally. The workshop is also a museum, with a display of his current work tools – gouges, chisels, files, rasps, etc. – as well as older woodworking tools which on occasion are still used, such as hand planes and sanders, crosscut saws, clamps, gimlets, older measuring devices and other historic woodworking instruments.
His work process starts always with the drawing and design of the projected artefact. He works always with hardwoods, such as walnut, oak, chestnut, cherry or ash, which he carves by hand only, with gouges and mallets. His artistic drawings are sometimes digitised and printed as templates or guides for his students.
TRAINING
Antxon qualified as a specialist designer and maker of furniture in 1991. He learnt woodcraft and sculpting in Eibar (Guipúzcoa) from 1988 to 1991, with the master carver Paulino Larrañaga. In San Sebastián he also took academic courses on drawing with José Luis Cobreros and… on painting and drawing with Juan María Navascués.
TEACHING
In his decades of experience as a master sculptor, carver, drawer and painter, he has had hundreds of students. He has given courses in many Basque municipalities, institutions and schools as well as at the Trade School of San Sebastián, where he instructs pupils of… all ages and backgrounds.
Worth mentioning are the following teaching experiences:
* Woodcarving at the Catalina de Erauso Art Club (1995-99)
* Woodcarving at the Lasarte Cultural Centre (1996-97)
* Woodcarving at the Pasai Antxo Cultural Centre (2000-01)
* Woodcarving at the Andoain Cultural Centre (2000-07)
* Woodcarving, sculpture, DIY, framing, wood décor and wooden toys in the Kutxa Aula 3 programme (2000-07)
* Woodcarving, sculpture, drawing, painting, cabinetry, carpentry, DIY, wooden décor, framing, marquetry and pyrography in his workshop (Mendi Arte)
SELECTED WORK
Monolith sculpture to mark the 50th anniversary of Ikastola Lazkao (Guipúzcoa)
Sculpture representing the painting El abrazo (The Embrace) at Carrefour des Arts in Mont-de-Marsan (France)
Homenaje al pastor vasco (Basque Shepherd Tribute) high relief in Trele (Argentina)
Sculptural tribute to the victims of 9/11 in New York… (US)
His work in traditional Basque carving is notable for its recovery of Basque ethnographic carving, which has nearly gone extinct. He is one of the few craftspeople to make carved chests in the 16th–18th-century Basque style or the 17th-century Argizaiola style of Basque folk art.
