Among the most important German contemporary sculptors, Stephan Balkenhol occupies one of the first ranks, if not the first of all.
It is especially with his wooden sculptures and reliefs, but also because of his murals, photographs and drawings, that Stephan Balkenhol, whose works can also be found in many public spaces, have gained international acknowledgement. Stephan Balkenhol established his figurative style in the 1980s. Unlike the 'drastic art' of the neo-expressionists, it was even in those early days that Stephan Balkenhol's works were characterized by an almost classic objectivity rather than trendy spontaneous burst. Stephan Balkenhol's reduced objective wooden sculptures are often carved right out of wooden block in an intended roughness and bordered in colors; they usually depict people and animals.
Stephan Balkenhol, who has been teaching at the Karlsruhe Academy of Visual Arts since 1992, was honored in the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg with a comprehensive retrospective in 2008/2009.