Lars Calmar's sculptures can feel confrontational at first glance. They are naked, direct and often difficult to place. Some people laugh; others are simply puzzled. But spend a little longer with them and they become less strange. What at first seems odd or provocative begins to feel familiar: the body, family, shame, will, vulnerability and the need to be seen.

Calmar was born on the island of Langeland in 1968 and trained as a ceramicist. That background is no coincidence – his work always begins in the material and in form. He has said that three dimensions have always come naturally to him, that he can only ever "see the way through form". You feel that in the sculptures. They are not images to be viewed from a distance. They are physical presences with weight, surface, skin, gaze and bearing.

"They are all self-portraits, every one of them."

– Lars Calmar

That is an important key to Calmar's work. The figures do not point outward – they begin with him. With experiences, feelings and inner tensions that take physical form in clay. The body is not an ideal for Calmar. It is a place where something has settled: in the stomach, the face, the eyes, the skin, the posture. The nakedness is not simply about the absence of clothing. It is about the absence of anything to hide behind.

Clay is central to all of it. Calmar works with modelling, glazing, firing and surface – but also with what he cannot fully control. The kiln, the cracks, the colours and the texture all play a part in bringing the figures to life. They do not come out smooth or perfect. They acquire skin, weight and resistance. That is precisely why they feel alive – and sometimes a little difficult to face.

"Someone once wrote about me that there was humour in the work — but with a deep, deep seriousness. I liked that."

– Lars Calmar

The humour in Calmar's work is genuine, but it is never played for laughs. It emerges when something becomes so honest or grotesque that it suddenly turns recognisable. You might smile – but rarely without feeling the weight behind it. That is precisely the balance that makes the work so compelling: it can be vulnerable, awkward, tender and confrontational all at once.

The connection to KLASSIK is not that Calmar's sculptures resemble the furniture or ceramics we normally work with. It lies in a shared interest in material, form, craft and a life lived.

At KLASSIK, the traces are found in the materials: wood, leather, cane, ceramics, patina and use. With Calmar, the traces are found in the body, shaped in clay. They are not the same kind of marks – but they come from the same underlying interest: how life, time and experience can settle into form.

There is another connection, too. At KLASSIK, the furniture was made for the body. Hands rest on armrests. Bodies settle into chairs. Elbows land on tables. Life happens around the objects. Calmar turns his gaze directly towards the body itself.

"I try to understand myself through what I make."

– Lars Calmar

Calmar's works are not meant to fit neatly in. KLASSIK's world is one of precision, proportion and considered space. The sculptures do not settle quietly into that – they create a contrast that makes both the works and the room stand out more sharply. Not to break with everything around them, but because they show something else: the body, the imperfect and the human in the presence of fine design.