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.

Brooklyn Art Library Opening This Weekend

 

This weekend sees the start of The Sketchbook Project’s tour of galleries and museums around the US. The tour begins at Art House Co-op’s very own Brooklyn Art Library located in the heart of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY.

My sketchbook will be one of the many books submitted by 28838 artists from 94 countries around the world. Each book on the tour can be checked out like a library book as well as being able to be viewed on-line. Although due to the scale of the project, it will take a while yet before all of the sketchbooks have been digitized. But if you would like to see in advance what I submitted for the project then feel free to check out my Oodles of Doodles blog.

To find out where else the project will be touring just click on the tour date map.

The Brooklyn Art Library - 103A N 3rd St. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11211
Hours: Tues-Sun: 12:00pm-8:00pm (closed Mondays)

Drawings of Nothing

I’ve just uploaded 24 new doodles, drawings, cartoons and scribbles. Doodling seems to have become part of my bed-time ritual lately. Most nights, just before I head off to sleep I try and force myself to jot down a few drawings. Sometimes I really get into it and am pleased with the rests, while other times I’m either not in the mood or just too tired and end up with something pretty awful. ‘Amorphous 4’ (above) is the fourth in a series of drawings which are the products of trying to draw things that don’t look like anything in particular. This might sound easy but once you start sketching random forms it gets harder not to let parts of the drawing look like something already existing – you’ll start to notice an eye, an elbow or something finger-like beginning to appear here and there.

Addicted to Drawing

I’m not wishing to knock it but I seem to be addicted to drawing at the moment – maybe it's my way of distracting myself from thinking about other stuff. I’ve just uploaded a few recent drawings to my sketchbook page. Most of them relate to, or are ideas for, the new Orifice Box sculpture project that I’m working on. But they are not the drawings that I mentioned in my previous post. Those ones will appear soon, on my quick-fire drawings page – just as soon as I get round to uploading them.

Doodle Update

Please feel free to check out the latest editions to my new series of quick-fire drawings. I’m not sure if it’s an addiction or just a late-night ritual but lately I feel the need to draw before I go to sleep – even when I’m really tired (which obviously shows in some of the doodles). I’m continually updating the site with new sketches but as it takes much longer to scan the buggers than it does to actually draw them, there tends to be a bit of a backlog of images waiting to be uploaded.

Squidosaurus Rex

As I’ve been without a studio for a while (and therefore not able to work on any sculptures) I’ve been doing a lot of drawing lately. Even though it was a kind of enforced break from sculpting – with me having to move out of my previous studio due to it being redeveloped – sometimes it’s good to take a break and do something more playful for a while. So I’ve been doing something I love; namely, defacing text books. In this drawing I’ve combined two of my favourite creatures – a T Rex and a Colossus Squid.
I’ve also just found my battered 1870’s copy of ‘The Works of Hogarth’, with 62 illustrations and can’t wait to get scribbling – very Chapman Brothers I know, but what the hell.

Sketchbook Archive # 01

The City/Fetish Mutated

If asked ‘what is the first thing you would try and save in a fire?’ I imagine that most artists would say sketchbooks (OK - if they had kids, they ‘might’ say kids first) – yet when it comes to exhibitions and the art world in general, these vital documents go largely over-looked. I know that not all artists use sketchbooks but to me they are invaluable. Not only do they act as a form of external memory (one of the worst things is to have a great idea for a piece, not make a note of it, then forget what it was) that you can come back to years later and find new inspiration in, but they also allow you to work out your mistakes without having to make them in the physical world.
So, as a tribute to the ‘the sketchbook’ I decided to start a regular (well, I say regular – I imagine that there will be more than one) Sketchbook Archive post on my blog, where I show a few examples of my working-drawings and talk about what was going through my mind at the time (cue the sound of wind and tumbleweed rolling across the prairie).
So, there goes –
The images above are perfect examples of what would happen if I could cross-breed some of my sculptures. Or rather, what the outcome would be if I started mixing some of the materials and techniques from one piece with that of another. These drawings take their inspiration from my earlier sculptures, The City (made mostly of wood and found materials) and Fetish, made from human hair. Ever since I first made Fetish I’ve been both fascinated and repulsed by the use of hair as an artistic medium. I love the look of it as a material but it feels horrible when you have to mix it, by hand, with glue. However, hair is a great thing to draw as it seems to dictate its own flow. But when I start introducing the rigid structure of wooden frames and boxes into the drawing, a kind of equilibrium or harmony comes into play and the two materials start to dictate the overall form the potential sculpture might take.
In a couple of the sketches you can see where I’ve experimented with adding items that I’d previously used in other sculptures – things like tubes, teeth and doll parts. This is one of the great things about sketchbooks – you can be a playful, dark or as silly as you like. And often, some of the best pieces come from what you originally thought of as just a stupid idea or from the crudest thumbnail sketch.

The Nest

Junk Metal Nest Sketch, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

Firstly I’d like to congratulate John McIlduff and Brian Irvine for winning one of the 12 Artists Take the Lead awards (commissions totalling £5.4 million) with their proposed Nest project - and secondly I’d like to thank them for using a blown-up image of my Junk Metal Nest sketch for the recent press conference here in London. After the conference John told me that he’d seen my sketch appear on Channel 4 News. It’s probably more like 15 seconds than 15 minutes of fame, but hey, I’m easily pleased.
John contacted me about using my drawing after he came across it on the internet. Although I’d already heard about the Arts Council England and London 2012 award (with money like that up for grabs, what artist hadn’t) it was the first that I’d heard of their Nest project. And once they told me about the similarities between their work and mine I immediately agreed to let them use my sketch.

Below are a few paragraphs about the project that I found on -
http://www.artiststakingthelead.org.uk/northern-ireland/brian-irvine-brian-irvinejohn-mcilduff-dumb-nest
But you can also find out more about the project at –
http://www.artscouncil-ni.org/news/2009/new221020092.html
and at -
http://press.artscouncil.org.uk/content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=880&NewsAreaID=2

THE NEST invites the people of Northern Ireland to create art on a massive scale through the simple act of donating an object. These will be collected and assembled into a gigantic creation to be built in Belfast by a team of artists and designers. THE NEST will become a focal point for a large-scale music and choral event, composed, written and directed by Brian Irvine and John McIlduff - inspired and performed by the people of Northern Ireland.

This huge multi-media project will have a presence throughout the towns and villages of the nation, as artists and volunteer teams travel to collection points to find out about and gather in the objects that people wish to donate. A multitude of items, small and large, will be collected from donors who will be asked to attach a baggage label illustrating how they are connected to their donated object. Donors will be filmed with their objects and the objects will be photographed, catalogued and under the direction of an artistic design team, take a single shape that will become THE NEST.

Words from these baggage labels together with film footage of people making their donations will be transformed into a large-scale musical work that will be performed by an orchestra and large community chorus made up of people from all over Northern Ireland: professional and unemployed people, young and not so young, farmers, doctors, bankers, shop-keepers, and people with disabilities amongst many others.

With thousands of objects and labels and hundreds of singing voices and musicians, THE NEST will be a far reaching, all embracing, sonic and sculptural landscape that examines and questions relationships between people and the things that we surround ourselves with - the things from which we make our own nests.

Any Old Iron... Any Old Iron

Mobile Citadel Sketch, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

I'm on the scrounge again. This time I'm looking for any old sheets of metal to make my new sculpture with. The more battered and corroded the better, but preferably not too thick - maybe 1-2 mm. Above you can see a quick sketch that I did which should give a rough idea of how the final piece might look.
The piece is for a new, 'A Gothic Story 2' (a follow up to the 'A Gothic Story' exhibition that I had work in last year), which will be held at Coal House Fort, a historic fortification on the Thames Estuary in East Tilbury, Essex, England. The exhibition will last for 3 months somewhere between May and September. It looks like it will also coincide with a Shakespeare company production of 'As you Like It', due to take place somewhere within the grounds.
I checked out Coal House Fort on the internet and found out that it is often used for film sets. In fact, the Chinese prison scenes in 'Batman Begins' were filmed there. Being a batman fan myself - this has got to be a good omen.

What You Own Will Finally Own You (work in progress)

WHAT YOU OWN WILL FINALLY OWN YOU (work in progress), originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

After meeting Luigi Vernieri, Editor and Art Director of FEFE magazine, at an exhibition of work by street artists in Shoreditch, I was invited to be one of the 25 artists to feature in and create a new piece for the next issue of the magazine.
This pencil drawing is the initial stage of the painting that I’m now working on.
The brief for each artist is to realize the theme of the magazine by interpreting a line of dialogue, selected from a movie. The phrase for this coming issue is ‘ WHAT YOU OWN WILL FINALLY OWN YOU’, which is a line that succinctly sums up one of the main issues that I try to deal with in much of my sculptural work.
Oddly enough, I noticed this same line crop up in the book, ‘Bonfire Of The Brands’, written by a friend, Neil Boorman. Because a lot of my work centres on the premise that one of the main things in life that tie us down is our addiction to things (that we are possessed by our possessions) I told him about my interest in the phrase and asked him where it came from. I shouldn’t really have had to ask as it comes from ‘Fight Club’, one of my favourite films.

“FEFE is an experimental Italian project, projected towards innovation and the search for new ideas in the world of communication and visual arts.The magazine is distributed in Europe, Asia, America and Australia.The acronym FEFE (Free Entry Free Exit) represents a group of individuals who have created an international magazine with the objective to reunite creators of visual arts invited to participate in its initiative.In each issue we invite 25 artists, a child and a writer.”

Rickety Lens Structure Sketch

Rickety Lens Structure Sketch, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

This is one of many working drawings that relate to the tower sculpture that I am currently working on (see work in progress photo below). I find these working drawings very useful. Some times the sketches and the finished sculpture bear a close resemblance. At other times they don’t. This is usually because either, in working the idea out on paper, I see the flaws in a particular idea or because a certain material that I decide to use might suggest another line of enquiry.
There seem to be two separate ways that I work as a sculptor. One where I have a set idea for a piece and where I set about making it so that it matches that original vision and another where I have a very loose idea for a sculpture and I simply let the materials and the chosen mode of construction dictate the end result. Although, it’s often a mixture of the two.

Crutch & Tumour Box Sketch

Crutch & Tumour Box Sketch, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

When I first had the idea for my 'Crutch & Tumour Box' sculpture I didn't have my sketch book to hand so I quickly scribbled down this thumb-nail sketch (afraid that I would have otherwise forgetten the idea) on a piece of scrap paper and taped it into my sketch book at a later date. Even though this is little more a scribbly little doodle I get quite precious about my drawings and sketch books. I suppose they are the hard copy manifestations of my creative thoughts.
After nearly loosing half of my sketch books to a recent flood in my studio I really should take better care of them. Time to invest in some water-proof containers, 'me thinks'.

Suck Pod Sketch

Suck Pod Sketch, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

This drawing came about after joking about what might happen if genetic engineering and the sex toy industry ever got together.

Entrail Plasma Box Sketch

Entrail Plasma Box Sketch, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

I seem to have an obsession with wheeled boxes that trail entrails behind them. I think it might be something to with the conflict between man-made geometric forms and the biomorphic aspect of the natural world. Or maybe it’s something to do with the body being seen as this pristine box that tries to deny the existence of its viscous, smelly and often rebellious insides. There’s probably something deeply Freudian going on.
Anyway - this is the most recent drawing and it’s for an idea that I had that requires the use of a plasma cutter and a welder. Unfortunately I don’t yet have a plasma cutter so this particular project has been put on the back burner.

Batman Skull Sketch

Batman Skull Sketch, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

This is for an idea I have for taking some human skulls and altering them so that they appear to have morphed with aspects of certain super heroes. I think that this should be quite a fun project but I’m not too sure how original it is.

Junk Metal Nest Sketch

Junk Metal Nest Sketch, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

I was surprised how coherently this sketch turned out. Originally I just set out to scribble down a rough idea for a spherical nest-like sculpture that I planned to weld together from bits of scrap metal.
Usually when I only have a vague idea for a piece, and no actual materials in front of me to draw from, the working drawing can initially look quite vague or messy (as I sketch out a rough image and then redraw over it – working it out as I go). Yet this one came out quite tight and finished, almost as if I was doing a drawing of a finished piece

Sun Worshipers 1

Sun Worshipers 1, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

Title: Sun Worshipers 1
Dimensions: 45 x 58 cm
Medium: smooth Hammerite paint & primer
on aluminium
Date: 2004

Nest Box Sketch

Nest Box Sketch, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

To see more of my sketches and working drawings click on the image above.

Crab Claw

Crab Claw, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

Skull Flag

Skull Flag, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.