A severe Vaia storm hit the region of northern Italy in 2018, and the consequences on nature in the area were devastating. Once-magnificent forests were destroyed while numerous trees got ripped out of the ground and scattered all over the place. Fortunately, the fallen wood now has a new life, thanks to one crafty Italian artist.
Sculptor Marco Martlar visited the most affected areas once the government cleaned the destroyed trees and discovered that a lot of wood was still lying there, including roots, branches, and other wooden debris. So he started collecting some and realized he could salvage it using the fallen wood to make sculptures.
“I like to think -that everything can take on new life and be always in transformation,” Martalar explained in a recent interview with I’Altopiano. “The destruction brought by Vaia was a blow to the heart, but then it made me want to get something good out of this disastrous event or find something beautiful in it somehow.”
Martlar first intended to make a sculpture of a cat, but the abundance of material prompted him to transition to a large-scale project. This resulted in an impressive sculpture of a lion standing at the top of the hill.
After receiving overwhelmingly positive reactions, Martlar created other grandiose works from the same material, including a dragon and a rooster, and intends to use waste wood in the future exclusively. Check out more of his works below.
