Ad Wouters

Ad Wouters (born 1944) is a sculptor, born in the Netherlands, who is active in Belgium in Leuven and the forest south of it. Wouters is known for his oak wood sculptures.^[1]

Ad Wouters in 2014

Biography

Wouters was born in Dordrecht. Starting at the age of 13, he worked in construction.^[2] At the age of 22 he traveled to Africa with the Belgian NGO Bouworde.^[3] After his stay in Africa, he went to live in Haasrode in Belgium, where he learned the skill of restoring buildings. Due to a work-related accident, where he fell from a church tower in the 90s he became unfit for this kind of work. From then on he developed himself as an artist.^[4]

Style

Wouters creates wood sculptures, mostly from oak tree trunks or from other recovered materials.^[5] He created his first wood sculpture accessible to the public, De Bosprotter commissioned by the forestry services of Meerdaal forest in the year 2000. He created several other sculptures since then.^[6]

Ad's itinerary

Map of Ad's itinerary

There is a path of 25 km one can take to march or cycle past most of Wouters' works through the woods of Heverlee and Meerdaal.^[7][8]

Ad's itinerary leads past

• Ignatius (2008)
• The director (2007)
• The Neanderthal man (2008)
• Bat (2006)
• The owl (2003)
• Woodpecker (2007)
• Inky cap (2007)
• Baloo (2010)
• The Bosprotter (2000)
• Drowned (2014)

• 
  The Bosprotter (2000)
• 
  Bat (2006)
• 
  Ignatius (2008)
• 
  De Neanderthaler (2008)

List of other works on display

Common kestrel

• Pootefretter (man eating carrot, which is the colloquial nickname for people from Haasrode) (1999), bronze statue in front of the community school of Haasrode
• Saint Michael (2009), brass statue in the Church of Saint Michael Leuven
• The Prophet (2012), wooden sculpture in the Sint-Donatus Park Leuven
• Arum lily wooden sculpture located in the orangerie of the Botanical garden of Leuven
• Drowned (2014), artwork made of litter, to symbolise how we are drowning in our own waste, located in Oud-Heverlee between the ponds.^[9]
• Voor hen van toen, stone to commemorate the volunteers of natural reserve Doode Bemde. It's right next to a bridge of the now defunct tramway line.^[10][11]