Mauro Wieser

Artist Statement

My work explores the tension between our authentic selves and the identities we perform. Through kinetic sculpture, I combine traditional woodworking with mechanical systems, movement, drawing, and language to investigate how expectation, habit, and experience shape the ways we present ourselves to the world.

Much of my work begins with my own experience navigating contemporary masculinity. Rather than asking what it means to be a man, I am interested in the expectations that shape behavior, the performances we repeat until they become habit, and the distance that can grow between our public selves and our authentic ones. Masculinity serves as a lens through which I explore broader questions of identity, vulnerability, and belonging.

Movement is central to this investigation. The mechanical systems in my sculptures are not simply functional; they conceal, reveal, interrupt, and transform the work over time. Humor and playfulness invite viewers into the sculptures before giving way to quieter moments of reflection, where familiar ideas about strength, toughness, and certainty begin to shift.

I hope my work encourages viewers to consider which parts of themselves are freely chosen and which have been shaped by expectation. Rather than offering answers, these sculptures create space to question the roles we perform and what remains when those performances begin to fall away.