Merry Xmas Everyone

T & Rudolf Xmas Card, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

After being inspired by my two young nephews' home-made xmas cards I thought I'd have a go myself.
Keeping it old school, I went for the low-tech approach and made my cards as lino prints.
So here is my contribution to this year's festive spirit. The image is of my my pet dinosaur,T, posing as Rudolf.

Merry Xmas everyone, and here's to a fun and creative 2009.

Tomorrow's Opening Party (Thurs 11th dec.)

Pharos Cyclops (1 of 2), originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

Just a quick reminder - tomorrow (if you're reading this after 11th December, then I'm afraid that you've missed it) we are having an opening party for our new Pharos show, 'Chiaroscuro'.

It's at 2A Ada Street, just off Broadway Market, London E8.

It kicks off at 6 pm and runs till 9 pm, although I dare say that we'll be continuing the festivities in the pub nearby - probably The Dove.

If you'd like to find out more about the 2 pieces that I made for the show please click on the image about and that should take you to my flickr account where I've waffled on about them at great (and possibly tedious) length.

Hope to see you there.

Whaleless Article

Whaleless Article - Italian Mag, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

This is an image of one of my sculptures, 'Poorly Remembered Whale', which recently appeared in an Italian magazine. I'm not actually sure which magazine it is or what the article says, as I don't speak any Italian.
The clipping was forwarded to me by Giovanni Cervi, the curator for the travelling show,'Whaleless', for which the piece was created.
The show started off at the Strychnin Gallery in London, earlier on this year, and will be ending up at Strychnin's Berlin gallery on 27th March 2009.
For more infomation about the show check out 'whaleless.blogspot.com' or 'www.strychnin.com'.

RCA Secret (The Hardcore)

RCA Secret 2008 (No 1), originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

I probably should have posted this message last week but you know how things are – busy, busy, busy. Anyway, I’d like to say a big hello to all the fantastic people that I met at the RCA Secret show a couple of Saturdays ago when the Royal College opened their doors for the sale of the postcards. I’d especially like to say hi to the hardcore few I met who chose to camp out days beforehand (you know who you are - you crazy bastards). And I must say that since being sent a link to a particular blog (rcasecret.blogspot.com), I’ve found myself surprisingly engrossed by everyone’s stories, and by strong community element of those who make what seems to be an annually pilgrimage to the event.

When one of the chaps that I spoke to showed me what cards he had bought, I instantly recognised one of them as being by a friend of mine, Josie McCoy. I had not seen it in the show, but in my defence I must say that I only managed to grab a quick look round beforehand.

Although I regularly contribute postcards to the annual RCA Secret event, this is the first time that I’ve actually turned up as a buyer. And to be honest, I only went this time because my raffle ticket (the first time I’d bought one) won and allowed me to be one of the first 50 in the queue. I must say that being one of the first 50 there was a slight temptation to go for work by the famous artists but that some how felt a bit disrespectful to all those who had braved the cold outside for days on end. Plus I thought it best to go for the ones that I liked. In the end I managed to get 1 of my 2 favourite pieces by an artist whose name I didn’t know at the time, but whose work I recognised (as is often the case, I remember the work but not the name) from a group show in Hoxton Square. It turned out to be by Elinor Evans. My other purchases were a couple of quirky drawings that just made me laugh and a fourth one that will be part of my girlfriend’s Christmas present (Holly, if you’re reading this, don’t you dare check out the RCA site and try to work out which one I got you).

So now I have 5 RCA Secret cards (yes, I know I said that this is the first time I’d bought any cards from the show, but a few years ago I won a Marc Quinn card in a Time Out competition – jammy or what?) in my collection. I’m starting to wonder if I’ve caught the bug and will become a regular in the queue. Only next year will tell.

'Scratch' film set

'Scratch' film set, originally uploaded by Wayne Chisnall.

I spent most of this weekend on the set of a new film ‘Scratch’. Why, I hear you ask? Well I’ll tell you. On my birthday I met an interesting young film director by the name of Jakob Rorvik. After checking out, and being very impressed with his work (check out his website – www.jakobrorvik.com) I was pleased to receive an email from him asking if I would like to have one of my sculptures, ‘And When I’m a Man’ (the big green model kit piece) feature in his new film, set in the art world of East London. Strangely enough the original location was going to be Candid Arts in Islington, where the piece is currently stored. I thought ‘bonus’ – I won’t have to move it very far. However, the eventual location was to be the Jago Gallery in Redchurch Street, Shoreditch – a gallery where I had previously exhibited. In the end we used four of my sculptures in the shoot – with the other three being ‘Dreams of Being Batman’, ‘Baby Kit’ and ‘Nail Box’. Someone joked that it looked like I was having a solo show.

Here is some info about the film, that I lifted from Jakob’s site -

Lena is a young art student new to London. Calling it her art project, she obsessively follows and takes pictures of an unwitting Sol; a scruffy, charismatic 20 year old, by all appearances homeless, who drifts around in numerous detached relations to people affiliated with the art scene.
Her project takes a wrong turn when Sol discovers her. Fascinated by her odd behaviour, Sol is now the one to follow her.
Against a backdrop of contemporary East-London, Sol and Lena gradually expose each other’s dreams, fears and lies.

The cast includes Viktoria Winge (Reprise), Luke Treadaway (Brothers of the head, War Horse), Patrick Kennedy (Atonement) and Montserrat Lombard (Ashes to Ashes, Vanilla Song).
The film is produced by Tamsin Lyons at the Oscar-Winning production company Breakthru Films and Yngve Sæther at Motlys.