His wooden sculptures spurn the classical ideals of beauty and present us with the nondescript everyday man/woman. His works have affinities to the wood carving tradition of the Middle Ages and northern renaissance and the 'naive' folk art of Poland and eastern Europe, yet there is more whimsy than Gothic in his forms. Using a variety of woods Balkenhol chisels away at impressive logs using power saws and hammers, letting his sculptures of lifelike men, woman, animals and perhaps even a hybrid of the two emerge.