Tobías Herrera Turizo, a religious sculpture carver, begins to carve a face out of a block of wood.
Photo by Samantha Hawkins, Smithsonian Institution
Tobías Herrera Turizo shows off his wood carving skills.
Photo by Samantha Hawkins, Smithsonian Institution
Tobías Herrera Turizo uses a knife to craft a hand out of tolú, a native Colombian wood, that will later be used in a religious sculpture.
Photo by Walter Larrimore, Smithsonian Institution
Tobías Herrera Turizo carves a hand out of tolú, a native Colombian wood, as Ingrid Frederick Obrigón answers visitors’ questions.
Photo by Walter Larrimore, Smithsonian Institution
Tobías Herrera has followed in the footsteps of his father, a skilled sculptor and carver. Tobías began creating sculptures from clay and plaster. He carved his first wooden sculptures when he was a young man. He is now renowned for his religious polychrome statutes, which form part of the stations of the cross scenes carried in the Mompox Holy Week processions.
"One strives to make everything better, to make a more beautiful sculpture, and to explore inwardly what is in the artist’s soul."
