Hairy Tower Sketch

Working Drawing 03, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

This sketch is of a sculpture that I've been planning for some time now. Its for a piece that would be a hybrid between my 'Fetish Tower' piece, which is made of human hair, and my sculpture, 'The City', which is predominently made of wood. It will be interesting to see how much the end result looks like this initial sketch.

'Spidie Pods' Print

'Spidie Pods' Print, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

Limited edition, hand-printed, silk-screen prints on acid-free Somerset paper. Signed and numbered. Edition of 300.
Title: ‘Spidie Pods’.
Dimensions: 58.3 x 53.9 cm.
Price: 100 pounds.
Artist: Wayne Chisnall.
To buy a print contact me at w.chisnall@vam.ac.uk

Alternatively you can buy this print from:
Beyond The Valley, 2 Newburgh St. London, W1F 7RD (020 7437 7338)
F-art, Cheshire St. off Brick Lane, East London (020 77295411)

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.

'Crutch & Tumour Box', Wayne Chisnall

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

With ‘Crutch & Tumour Box’ I was trying to apply organic principles to something that is obviously man-made and rectilinear.
Taking the construct of the box as a starting point, this piece pursues the biological anomaly of the cancerous cell as a mode of enquiry.
Whilst mimicking the out of control mechanism of the malfunctioning and self-replicating cancerous cell, the piece hopefully manages to convey a biomorphic presence.
Teetering like a top-heavy fraction, ‘Crutch & Tumour Box’s’ comical appearance is further heightened by the necessitation of its crutch section - a support that is deliberately undermined by the application of a wheel.

John Malkovich - On-Line Script Project

Sony - J Malkovich Letter, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

Ok – this isn’t, strictly speaking, artwork but I thought I’d include it in my blog anyway. One, because there was a certain amount of creativity involved and two, because I thought that it was fun.
Basically, I entered an on-line script writing competition run by Sony. In the competition entrants got to submit a 500 word section of script that had to follow on from a piece written by John Malkovich. Then it would get whittled down to five scripts, John would choose the winner and then the process would start over again.
Anyway – John chose my script, ‘Doppelganger’, as the winner of the first round and this is what he said about it:

“ … I’m going to go with the “Doppelganger” script. It’s clever, inventive, and somehow both surprising and inevitable. Very neatly done all in all.”

John Malkovich
Jan 4th, 2008

'Nail Box', Wayne Chisnall

'Nail Box', Wayne Chisnall, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

‘Nail Box’ is a sculpture greatly indebted to and influenced by the minkisi artefacts of central Africa. Many of these ritualistic objects are carved wooden totems that have had nails and other metal items hammered into them. However, where as the minkisi derive their power from their contents, with ‘Nail Box’ I was trying to create something that’s presence was derived from its adornment of carefully selected nails and rusty metal. By bringing together so many items that had interacted with the elements and their specific environments I hoped to create a piece that would generate a cumulative resonance.
As is the case with many of my sculpture, the found materials used in this pieces’ construction were selected for their ‘resonance’ and collected over several years.
Whilst most of the metal items used in this piece were found in London, anywhere from the streets of Hackney to the inside of the Dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, much of it was collected from the my travels around Britain and abroad, including Europe, Mexico, Cambodia, Thailand, Tunisia and India.
Considering the obsessive nature behind the way I collect and hoard the materials that I use in my work (you should see my studio – it is full of boxes of rubbish (a.k.a. treasure) – I fear that I am a lost cause), I see these sculptures as totems or magnifications of the ritualistic side of everyday life. Physical embodiments of the personal belief systems we all create around us.

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