The Event 2011

I’m delighted to say that I’ve been invited to exhibit work at TROVE's (a heritage site located in the Engine Room of Birmingham’s old Science and Industry Museum) new show as part of this month’s The Event 2011 (the third bi-annual visual art festival hosted by Birmingham Contemporary Art Forum) which runs from 21 – 30 October. The show brings together a combination of Heat Robinson-esque machines and 2D dreams of machines and is curated by Charlie Levine of TROVE in conjunction with Minnie Weisz Studio of King’s Cross, London. The exhibition will cross sound, film and object/sculpture and be based around the narrative of ‘Creative Machines’ and minimalist sculpture – a look into pure machines meets pure minimalism.

  
My contribution to the show will be my mobile cabinets of curiosity sculpture, The City.

TROVE: THE EVENT 2011
21 – 30 October 2011
Curzon Street Station, Curzon Street, Birmingham

Artists include: Alex Chinneck, Wayne Chisnall, Stephen Cornford, Jamie Jackson, Markus Kayser, Rob Mullender, Alex Pearl, Ben Rowe, Martin Sexton, Laura Skinner, Luke Williams and Adam Zoltowski

Orifice Tower (Work Nearing Completion)

I seem to have been neglecting my blogs the last couple of weeks so I thought I’d give you an update on the progress of my latest tower sculpture (which is a much taller variation on my recent series of Orifice Box sculptures).

As I’m sure you’ll notice it’s now at least twice the height (around 6 foot tall) that it was at just a few posts ago. I’ve designed the sculpture so that it can be bolted together in three separate sections – which should make it a lot easier to transport to and from exhibitions. It’s still not completely finished as I’m still adding a few details but you get a rough idea of what the final piece will look like. I’ve also been working on a ‘Planetiod’ piece but I’ll tell you more about that one later.

Repurposing with a Passion

My work and I (god, I sound like the queen) have just been featured in the article, ’Repurposing with a Passion’ by the artist, writer and curator, D. Dominick Lombardi. In the article for Public Art and Ecology Magazine Beijing, China, Lombardi asks a number of artists from around the world to answer four questions about their art practice and the use of recycled materials in that practice. The article starts on page 59 of the magazine and my work is featured from pages 61-63 (the 2nd and 3rd pages of the article as they appear on screen).

Of my work Lombardi says:
‘From his studio in London, England, Wayne Chisnall creates art that references such things as structure, time and Modernism as they pass through a very contemporary mindset that focuses on humor, transience, functionality and futility. There is also the presence of popular culture in his thinking, as he addresses the differences between reality and perception, and how that affects the needs, wants and even the formation of
the human psyche.’

To find out what questions Lombardi asks of his chosen artists and to find out our responses please feel free to check out the article.

“Repurposing with a Passion”
by D. Dominick Lombardi.
Public Art and Ecology Magazine
Beijing, China
http://media.icompendium.com/ddlombar_RepurposingwithaPassion.pdf

Above photo courtesy of Phil Sofer

Orifice Tower (Work in Progress)

As much as I love socializing and taking full advantage of London’s amazing nightlife I have some how managed to make a bit more time for my studio practice. And the latest piece that I’m working on is a variation on my recent Orifice Box sculptures. But this time I’ve decided to elevate the work and substitute my signature wheels with a rickety wooden box and scaffold-like framework.

Like my wheeled orifice box structures this one also has a carved elliptical orifice in the front face of the box. This work-in-progress photo shows the top half of the sculpture that will eventually stand at around six foot tall. In the lower right-hand corner of the photo you can see one of my sketchbooks and the working drawing for the new orifice tower.

And here’s a closer view of the drawing – showing a few mid-process alterations.

Being a bit of a night-owl I prefer to work through the early hours. This means that I have the building to myself so can have the radio on pretty much as loud as I like. My friend Lisa gave me an old Roberts radio and the only bearable channels that get a clear reception are Radio 3 and 4, so I tend to mostly listen to classical music while I work.

Anyway – I’ll get to the point. A few nights ago, whilst working on this new piece I happened to be listening to some very fine choral music and it struck me that the orifice section of the work looked a bit like a mouth, singing. So I quickly sketched out this idea for a set of new orifice tower sculptures, each equipped with an internal speaker and collectively playing the same piece of choral music. Hopefully I’ll get to make this new body of work one day but it’s also very likely that it’ll just get relegated to my sketchbook graveyard of creative ideas.

Congratulations Nail Box

I’ve just received an email from the nice folks at Saatchi Online to let me know that my Nail Box sculpture has made it into the next round of their Showdown competition. Out of the 2900 entries my piece made it into the final 300 (out of which only 5 are sculptures) which will now go to a juried selection. If Nail Box makes it into the final 30 selected for the last round, which will be a public voting round, then I may have to send out a few emails asking if anyone is feeling generous enough to give the little fella a helping hand (and yes, I do tend to anthropomorphise a lot of my work).

Saatchi Gallery Showdown 5

I’ve just checked my page on the Saatchi Online site to see how my Nail Box sculpture is doing in the new Showdown competition and was surprised to find that it’s current standing is listed as 32 out of 2900 entries. This seems pretty good as it’s normally the paintings that get all the votes. But it’s early days yet and I won’t be shocked if it doesn’t make it into the top 300 entries and therefore advance to the jury voting stage.
Also, I suspect that Nail Box is a bit vain and only wanted to enter the competition so that lots of people would get to see it.

The Return of Spiky

Tomorrow I should finally be able to finish my Frankenstein’s Orifice Box sculpture when I install the internal Stilted Nail Cube piece. Even though I completed the main, outer shell some time ago, it has been sat in the workshop at the Victoria and Albert Museum (where I’ve been working and where I also collected the scraps of old wood to construct the sculpture) waiting for me to complete the internal structure. So now that both sections are complete I’ll have the outer shell delivered to my studio and hopefully they should fit together – fingers crossed.

The inner section is inspired by my earlier Nail Box sculpture which in-turn is heavily influenced by the Minkisi totems of the Congo (and possibly by an image I once saw of one of Eduardo Paolozzi’s early sculptures in an old catalogue – but I might have just dreamed that bit because I haven’t since been able to find any reference to it).
Although you can’t clearly see it from this image, the front and the back of the cube have windows of splintered wood ‘exploding’ outwards (so that you can look straight through the box). When I was constructing the piece I wanted the splintering to look quite spontaneous and not too contrived but in order to get the exact random quality that I was looking for I had to do quite a few controlled experiments first. This involved me sandwiching pieces of old wood between two thick pieces of plywood with holes cut out of the middles of them and clamping the lot firmly to a sturdy vice. I would then run at the vice, swinging a claw hammer like a maniac, and try and hit the sandwich dead in the centre of the cut-out holes (needless to say, there were a few near misses). At first I just tried hitting the centre of the holes from a non-maniacal, standing position but for some reason the screaming nutter approach achieved the best results.

As is the way with most of my projects – as soon as I start making one thing I get loads of ideas for similar or spin-off pieces. And when I was making the inner cube section of the Frankenstein Orifice Box I began to wonder what a whole cluster of stilted cube sculptures would look like if I lengthened the stilts so that the cubes were viewable at head height. Needless to say – I now want to make a cluster of long stilted cube sculptures (oh, where will I find the time?).
Incidentally, this sketch was made during a practice shoot for a filmed, 24 hour drawing project that I’m thinking of doing along with film makers, Oliver Goodrich and Mike Taylor at Big Face Art. The project will involve me sitting at desk and trying to draw solidly for 24 hours. I know that 24 hours doesn’t sound like a mammoth amount of time to do anything as an endurance task but it’s amazing how mentally tiring it can be if you just sit for six or seven hours and try to fill sketchbooks with drawings from the top of your head. Anyway – we’ll see how it goes.

While I was going through some of my old sketchbooks I came across this one from 2008 which also plays with the idea of raising up small box structures to head height via the use of spindly stick structures. So I must have these little themes running through my head and they just resurface every now and again when they spot a project that suits them. A lot of these drawings tend to be nothing more than thumbnail sketches accompanied by lots of scrawled instructions (normally about construction methods or suggested materials) to my future self - although this one doesn't seem too scribbly.

Horned God Orifice Box

Months ago I showed you some images of my Horned God Orifice Box (yes, I’ve still not come up with a snappier title for it yet) whilst it was under construction and even though I finished it soon after I forgot to post any images of it in its finished state. So here it is, along with a few related sketches.

Here it is sitting on one of the work benches in my studio. The Horned God part of its title comes from the branches coming out of either side of it. And the Orifice bit – well that’s probably quite obvious.

This small drawing from my pocket sketchbook was made early on when I first thought about starting the Orifice Box series. Unlike the Horned God and Frankenstein’s Orifice Boxes this is to be left plain except for an external drawing decoration. I have yet to start this one though.

In this image you can see that, in-keeping with my love of using found materials, I have used the backboards from some old paintings. They came from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and you can clearly see one of the original labels and some of the remnants of gum tape. Although you can’t see it from the two photos, the inside of the Horned God Orifice Box is lined with a collage of bits of early 20th Century newspaper and over-drawn in a similar style to the external pattern on the small drawing above.

One thing that I want to get back into the habit of doing is the quick-fire drawing sessions that I used to do every night before I went to bed. I particularly enjoy the very fast sketches that only take a few seconds to execute. What you loose in accuracy you tend to gain in vibrancy. This one was made after I’d started the new series of Orifice Box sculptures and is a kind of cross between them and my earlier wall-mounted Orifice sculpture.

States of Reverie – Opening Night

I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone that made it to the opening night of the States Of Reverie exhibition at Scream on Thursday 13th (I should really have posted this over a week ago but it's been a busy couple of weeks). The turn out was amazing and it was only afterwards when a friend emailed my this wireimage link that I realised how many famous faces were present. After checking out the link it seemed that the place had been full of actors, designers, musicians and models. Needless to say, I didn't see a single one of them – I must have been wondering around in my own little bubble again.

Glen Matlock (of the Sex Pistols) and Jo Wood were amongst the guests...

along with actor, Sean Pertwee - seen here with Scream's very own press officer, Lee Sharrock.

And here's a picture of me looking a little drunk (although I promise I wasn't at this point. However, what condition I ended up in at the after-party at China White's is another matter entirely) in front of my giant model kit sculpture. Incidentally, I was totally blown away by how fast and by how many sites my model kit sculpture, And When I'm a Man, appeared on after an image of it appeared in my last post. I think that Laughing Squid might have been the first to feature it but it also soon appeared in the Huffington Post and on Boing Boing, as well as dozens of other sites. So thanks everybody.

Botanists of the Asphalt - This Thursday

Here are a few detail shots of my sculpture, The City, that I will be showing in this Thursday's 'Botanists of the Asphalt' show. If you would like to come to the show please RSVP to the curator, Stephanie Pochet, at stephanie@thecamplondon.com or by ringing 07966 244138.

Botanists of the Asphalt (Part 1)

Private View - Thursday 3rd December (6.30 – 9.30pm)

Exhibition Runs - 4th December to 5th January

The City Arts & Music Project, 70-74 City Road, London EC1Y 2BJ - 0207 253 2443

info@thecamplondon.com

'Whaleless' - Strychnin Gallery (opening night - Friday, 11th July, 7pm)

Poorly Remembered Whale (side view), originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

This is my contribution to the Strychnin Gallery's 'Whaleless' Exhibition (details below). The piece is called 'Poorly Remembered Whale' - the idea being that once the creatures have become extinct and our memories of them as real, living animals fade, they almost become things of myth and legend. And our only physical record of them are as old bones in museums.
For the majority of this piece's construction I chose to use stuff that I had collected whilst mudlarking along the Thames at low tide. As well as the aquatic connection, this material provided a link to the story of the unfortunate whale that recently perished in the Thames. Sadly, that incident was probably the closest that many of us Londoners will ever come to seeing a whale.

WHALELESS, an international group show dedicated to the whales, will be on display at the Strychnin Gallery London – from July 11 to August 10, 2008.
Curated by Giovanni Cervi and Res Pira, Whaleless will feature work by Catalina Estrada, Stuart Semple, Gemma Compton, Wayne Chisnall, Luke Insect, Pure Evil, Lee Baker, Dan Hillier, Arianna Carossa, Squp, Chris Bonobo, Ryan Obermeyer, Zaelia Bishop, Aurelien Police, Nicoz Balboa, Guiliano Sale, Silvia Argiolas, Kokomoo, Tamara Ferioli, Myron Campbell and Marie Luise Emmermann.

Whaleless is an art project dedicated to those artists wishing to express their indignation, rage, shame, disbelief or concern about the slow disappearance of the fascinating giant marine mammals. Pollution, whaling and unacceptable fishing practices are only some of the causes that seriously endanger their survival.

It seems that whales are slowly but inevitably growing extinct, while the consequences of their gradual disappearance are impossible to predict. And yet we can be certain that the world’s ecosystem – not just the oceans’ but that of our entire planet – will be affected by this change.

Whaleless was born three years ago on the pages of the Italian PIG magazine and on the Whaleless website. As a result, over 200 pieces of art work – from the USA to Hong Kong, from Russia to Venezuela – were submitted to the project and some of these will be on show in the London exhibition.

Over the next few years, the exhibition will visit other major European cities in an attempt to raise awareness for this global environmental problem.
The world would not be the same without whales, which is why action needs to be taken immediately. Therefore, a percentage of sales from this exhibition will be donated to Greenpeace to support them in their actions to save the whales.

Times: Friday to Sunday – 12 noon to 6pm. Open for Time Out‘s First Thursdays on August 7 (5pm to 9pm).
Strychnin Gallery, 65 Hanbury Street, London, E1.

Exhibition @ Strychnin Gallery London

The City (close up 1), originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

I've just been invited by the lovely people at Strychnin Gallery to be a guest artist at the new show in their London Gallery. The pieces that I will be exhibiting are 'The City' (see image above) and 'Pelvis'.

Here are the exhibition details -

'In The Absence Of Colour' (a black and white group show)
Opening Night - Friday 9th May, 7pm
Duration of show - 9th May - 9th June

Strychnin Gallery
65 Hanbury Street (off Brick Lane)
London E1 5JP
www.strychnin.com

Opening times - Friday through Sunday (12 noon until 6 pm)

'The City' & Little Girl (ROLLO Gallery 2006)

'The City' & Little Girl (ROLLO Gallery 2006), originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

Here sits a little girl, gazing at 'The City' sculpture that I exhibited in the ROLLO Art Gallery's 2006 (Sept - Oct) Contemporary Sculpture show, in conjunction with the Royal British Society of Sculptors (RBS). I over heard her say "mummy it's a castle".
TO SEE MORE EXHIBITION PHOTOS CLICK ON THE ABOVE IMAGE.

The City (+ details)

The City (+ details), originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

Dimensions: 92 x 43 x 43 cm
Materials: mixed media