'21 Steps' exhibition ( Liverpool)

Tomorrow morning I'm getting up bright and early and heading off to Liverpool. It's probably been a good twenty years since I last visited this lively city so when David Crawley, the director of Up And Coming Arts, asked me if I'd like to exhibit in his new exhibition I jumped at the chance. The show is called '21 Steps' and one of it's main sponsors is Liverpool Football Club.
Unfortunately I have to head back to London the same day so I won't be able to enjoy the musicians, bands and DJs that have signed up for Friday's opening party but if you are in the area and want to see what's going on then feel free to check out the Up And Coming Arts blog for all the details.

My contribution to the exhibition (which takes place over two venues) will be these three works – a painting, a pencil drawing and a print.

The painting is called 'The Ambassadors' and takes its figurative element from a photograph that appeared in many of the British tabloids a few years back. It shows a fight between some English and Turkish 'football fans'.
Like many of the paintings that I made at the time that I painted this one, it is painted on a shallow box structure that I constructed and the lines sheer off over the edge. The white line of the drawing is actually the primed surface showing through, so when you view the piece in the flesh, so to speak, your eye fluctuates slightly between the painted surface and the line drawing below. This can give the impression (from a certain distance) that the line of the drawing vibrates slightly.

I'm quite pleased with the pencil drawing but unfortunately the picture here doesn't do it justice – something that can be put down to my limited technical skills in the photographic department. The sketch is of a selection of found objects that I had lying around in my old studio but which I decided to draw as if they had mutated slightly and then morphed into one another. I think that it must have been one of those slow days, sculpturally, when I didn't have any big projects on the go and just decided to mess about a bit.

And lastly but hopefully not least, there's my Spidey Pods screen prints which will be on sale at the exhibition for £167 each. However, if you can't make it to Liverpool for the show but would like to purchase a print direct for me then please feel to drop me a line at waynechisnall@yahoo.co.uk .

Urban Curations

There’s a new website called Urban Curations that showcases work by some rather splendid street/urban and fine artists, photographers and Installation artists. So I feel very privileged to have a couple of my works featured on the site. All works are for sale and Infinity Bunce (founder of the site and a practising artist herself), who has been curating shows in London for some years, will be featuring many of the site’s selected artists for forthcoming events.

The first piece that I have featured on the site is a painting called Kitchen Blue. It is based upon a photograph that I took of a friend, Julia Lister (then known as Joolz Long), standing in my kitchen. The original photo was taken back in our student days in Northampton and as you can see, Julia wasn’t that keen on having her picture taken. A lot of people seem to like this painting and I’m not sure if it’s the ambiguity over the figure’s gender (what with the face being covered, the hair cropped short) or the contrast between the flat graphic nature of the background and the meatiness of the figure's flesh tones. And I assure you all that any confusion over Joolz’s gender if definitely down to my painting style and not her looking like a bloke (which by the way, she definitely doesn’t do).

The second of my paintings featured on the site is this one, The Ambassadors, based upon a photograph that appeared in the British tabloid press a few years ago. It shows a fight between some English and Turkish 'football fans'.
Like the background section in Kitchen Blue, the paint in The Ambassadors is a thick household gloss oil paint that has been applied with a very tiny brush. The paint had to be applied very quickly, before the paint had time to dry (so as to give a smooth finish and not leave any brush marks). With both paintings and others in the series, the white lines that make up the line drawings in the work are actually formed by the exposed and primed surface below. A lot of people asked me if I had somehow masked off these sections before starting the painting process and are surprised when I tell them that I don’t – that I simply paint either side of the lines. This might be a far more labour-intensive way of working but I do like the crisper line that this method produces. With this technique your eye also notices the very slight fluctuation of depth between the paint and the white line when you see the works in person.
The annoying thing about working on The Ambassadors was that about a week into the painting a wrinkled skin started to form on the surface of the paint as it dried so I had to scrap it off, re-prime the board, re-draw the image and start again. I don’t know if it was because of the hot weather or the mix of the paint but this happened four more times before I eventually got it right. It was a some what infuriating experience, during which, toys may have been thrown out of the pram.

Two Shows Opening Thursday

This evening's been a bit hectic, setting things up for both of tomorrow's opening nights but at least everything now seems to be in place. I've hung the two paintings (see photos) for the Tate The Biscuit show down in the basement of Shoreditch Town Hall and I've delivered my City sculpture to The City Arts & Music Project, ready for Botanists of the Asphalt.
It's a shame (or maybe fortunate) that I don't drink vodka as I've just found out that Absolute Vodka are sponsoring the Botanists exhibition.
So if anyone would like to come to either or both events you will be most welcome. However, if you are planning to come to the Botanists of the Asphalt, just remember to RSVP to stephanie@thecamplondon.com first.
Hope to see you there.

Candid Gallery – Summer Show

I know this is a bit of a last minute thing but I thought that I had better mention this year’s Candid Gallery Summer Show – especially since it will be featuring 10 of my paintings and 1 of my prints. In fact it looks like my work might be taking over a whole gallery wall. How greedy is that? About half of my paintings in the exhibition have been seen before and half will be exhibition virgins (so please be gentle with them).
For anyone who is unfamiliar with Candid Gallery and for that matter, Candid Café (which has to be one of the best secret chill-out spots in London), they are located at 3-5 Torrens Street, behind Angel Tube Station in Islington, London EC1V 1NQ.The Summer Show runs from 24th August to 13th September and there will be three Tuesday 6-10 pm late views, starting with this Tuesday’s Opening Night (25th August).
So, I hope to see a few familiar faces their and don’t worry – they do have a bar.
For further information check out www.candidarts.com or ring them directly on 020 7837 4237.

Arty Business

LBS_Crossroads Art Exhibition set-up, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

I'd like to thank Julie Dagonet and the rest of the fantastic Crossroads Art Exhibition team at the London Business School for inviting me to be guest artist in their upcoming show. Above is a photo showing the setting up of the exhibition. It was refreshing to be involved in an installation where everything went smoothly – no tears and tantrums with this group. As far as I can remember this is the first time that I’ve had my work exhibited in a big office environment, and it works surprisingly well. There is a strangely surreal play between the everyday nature of the room and the work (looking like it has found itself somewhere that it shouldn’t be) – I love it.
The rest of the works on display are by members of the school community. Namely - Rikkya Oker, Dennis Valdez, Carl Clough, Kevin Talbot, Marie-Helene Dagonet, Shalini Chanda, Ninad Shinde, Denise Donoghue, Kyueun Han, Remi Savoya, Nina Kelemen, Caroline Bray, Juan Diego Sorbet Esnoz, Lok Ming Fung, Ming Gao, Yvonne, Svetlana Aslezova, Thibaud Simphal, and Erik Wilterding.
And considering that many of these people might not claim art to be their primary passion, there is some very accomplished work on show.
So Tuesday evening’s opening night looks to be quite exciting. Not only do we have Dean Andrew Likierman’s inauguration at 5:30 pm and the opening of the show in the Fairbairn Room at 5:45, there’ll be a concert in the Upper Quad at 6:16 pm, performed by students from the Royal Academy of Music. The performers are Midori Komachi on Violin, Helene Koerver on Viola and Alena Lugovkina on Flute. And the following day, May 27, we have LauYee Yeung on the Harp.

Ambassadors @ The Jago

Ambassadors @ The Jago (2), originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

This is an interior shot of The Jago, the new gallery/bar located half way down Redchurch Street in Shoreditch, London.

At the moment I am showing three of my paintings here, The Ambassadors (as seen at the far end of the bar), Kitchen Blue and Spidey Segments. A few of my signed and editioned Spidey Pods prints (taken from my Spidey Segments painting) are also available from The Jago.

On a slightly different note - the Strychnin Gallery show which featured two of my sculptures, The City and Pelvis, has just come down. However, Pelvis can still be viewed throughout the new exhibition, downstairs in the gallery's permenant collection. The new show is called 'Ugly American' and I'm looking forward to meeting the artist, Chet Zar, at tomorrow's opening (Friday, 13th June, 7pm). If anyone else fancies checking out what looks like being an amazing show then the address for Strychnin is 65 Hanbury Street, off Brick Lane, London E1 5JP.

See ya there.

The Ambassadors (with side view)

The Ambassadors (with side view), originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

'The Ambassadors' takes its figurative element from a photograph that appeared in many of the British tabloids some years ago. It shows a fight between some English and Turkish 'football fans'.
This photo shows the side view of the painting where you can see how the lines sheer off over the edge. The white line of the drawing is actually the primed surface showing through, so when you actually view the piece in the flesh, so to speak, your eye fluctuates slightly between the painted surface and the line drawing below. This can give the impression that the line of the drawing vibrates slightly.

'The Ambassadors', Wayne Chisnall

The Ambassadors, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.