Balkenhol was born in 1957 in Fritzlar, Hesse, Germany, and studied art at the Hamburg School of Fine Arts (197682). He became known for its Minimalist and Conceptualist artwork, but his early sculptures consisted of single male or female nudes attached to pedestals, echoing the tradition of classical Egyptian, Roman, and Greek statues.

From the mid-1980s to the present, Balkenhol continued to depict the human figure, but now as ordinary looking men or women in simple clothing. In addition, during the early 1990s, he began to make animal figures alone or in combination with humans, as well as their hybrids.

Balkenhol's sculptures of commonplace people are not narrative in any explicit way, but are rather suggestive of a cert...