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A frozen moment, just before he is to pitch. The pitcher balances on the toes of his right foot. Raises the left knee. Bends the head. Bends the back. Brings the right hand with the ball towards the neck. The movement is easy to complete in your mind. The baseball pitcher will extend his arm backwards and bring it forward. The ball will race towards the batter with great speed. But will he hit the ball?

Sculptor Peter Kortekaas has chosen the moment in which tension, power and concentration come together: the moment before the explosion. That should not surprise us. Kortekaas often captures people and animals in characteristic poses: a runner throwing himself over the finish line or a sculptor with a folder of work under his arm. Here, characteristic is not synonymous with 'obvious' or 'easy'. Kortekaas has extensive anatomical knowledge, which he deploys skilfully in his modelling. He sees complex poses and movements as a challenge, as in 'Pitcher'. Here Kortekaas shows that every fibre of the body is stretched like a string. Moreover, he shows that a figure can remain balanced on only one standing leg. Yet Kortekaas puts the striking portrayal of character or inner self before anatomically correct representation. He also has a certain sense of humour. The stubborn looking ram in the Zuiderpark is an example of this.

Kortekaas modelled the aforementioned sculptures in clay and then cast them in bronze. But he also works in stone, wood, lead and ceramics. The sculptures are not always naturalistic either. Abstracted and fully abstract sculptures are also part of his oeuvre.