Lucas Guilbert

Lucas Guilbert
Australian Timber Sculptor

Lucas Guilbert transforms raw timber into contemplative works that bridge the civilized and the wild. Born in Montreal and settling in Australia in 2007, this award-winning Australian sculptor has built a practice rooted in the intersection of natural forms and human experience.

Working from his Docklands studio near Melbourne’s CBD, Guilbert creates timber sculpture that ranges from intimate gallery pieces to commanding public art installations. His fascination with wood has driven him across all ecological regions of the continent, sourcing exceptional timber that carries within it an archaeology of growth, decay, and transformation.

Guilbert’s approach to woodcarving is both technical and alchemical. He employs burning, charring, brushing, distressing, oiling, buffing, bleaching, aging, dyeing, and quenching to coax from each piece its hidden character. Raw steel and brass often punctuate his compositions, creating singular works that resist easy categorization. His animal sculpture and totem-inspired forms emerge not as literal representations but as archetypal presences, works that awaken something primal in urban environments.

Primarily self-taught, Guilbert began carving wood in his early life and has refined his artistic style through learning from master craftsmen and participating in art residencies. His sculptures have been featured in group exhibitions, galleries, and art competitions throughout Australia, while private commissions for site-specific works continue to expand his reach.

The sculptor’s vision encompasses both the monumental and the intimate. His garden sculpture installations bring unapologetic natural beauty into domestic spaces, while his larger public art pieces invite passersby to reconsider their relationship with the organic world. Each work, whether destined for a gallery wall or an outdoor setting, carries the weight of deep time: the years archived in wood grain, the photons captured, the countless events witnessed by living trees.

Guilbert’s work seeks to encourage discourse between the ecological and the man-made, between the natural, external sphere and the human, inner sphere. His pole art and vertical compositions echo ancestral forms while speaking a contemporary language, challenging viewers to contemplate essence, impermanence, and connection.

Operating at the intersection of fine art and environmental meditation, Lucas Guilbert continues to evolve a sculptural practice that honors both material and meaning, creating museum-quality works that are as much about what remains as what has been carved away.