Ping Pong

For the last month and a half, I've working on designs for the new Ping Pong restaurant, next to Wembley Stadium, North London. For anyone that doesn't know much about Ping Pong, they're an international restaurant chain that specialise in Dim sum. And for this project I've been working in conjunction with Andy Martin Architects who have done an amazing job on the look and feel of the building.

After numerous ideas and sketches (some of them a bit more out there than others) we settled upon a 1930's Shanghai influence for my mural design, as this tied in with the over-all vibe of the restaurant. My approach to the mural was to paint it in such a way that it looks as though the design has been up on the wall for years, and faded, and flaking off in places. This was easier to achieve in the flat areas of colour, such as the stylised, blue and white, cloud element, but a bit trickier with the tonal areas of the figure. But I'm very happy with how it turned out.

As well as the mural, I also hand-painted five large wall panels for the ladies and gents. The original designs for these were quite adventurous but in the end we realised that something a little more toned-down would work best in these areas. So I came up with a subtler image that was a sort of contemporary take on a fairly traditional oriental flower and stem design.

The piece that I most enjoyed working on during this project is a massive, 20 metre-long light box that hangs from the ceiling, in the centre of the restaurant. For this I came up with a predominantly aquatic themed design, incorporating drawings of jellyfish, octopuses, fish, seaweed, and weird forms, morphing together. This is the part of the project into which I feel I was able to inject more of my own style, and therefore really go to town on it.

Unfortunately the light box had not been installed by the time that I finished the mural so I don't have any photos of it yet. In fact, when I return in the New Year (to complete another mural for a private dinning area that has been built on-site), that will be the first time that I get to see the fully constructed light box. But until I go back and take some photos, here's a preliminary drawing that I made for one element of the piece, just to give you a feel for it. The actual light box design is quite brightly coloured, so that's another thing that I'm eagerly anticipating seeing.

Curious Art-Pie Show – VOTE NOW!

I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who has been voting for my entry in the up-coming Curious Art-Pie Show, which, amazingly, has now put my piece in the top three most voted for. The artwork that I've entered is my 2m tall, piece, Orifice Tower. The organisers of the show told me that it is the only sculptural entry so far. So hopefully that should stand in its favour – I think!
 
So if any of you kind souls out there wouldn't mind casting a vote my way (or even spreading the word) I'd be a very happy bunny. I'm sure that all of you are pretty computer-savvy, but for any fellow Luddites out there, in order to vote, you have to click on the yellow stars (1 star BAD, 10 stars GOOD) at the top left-hand side of the page of whoever it is that you want to vote for (yes, it took me quite some time before I realised this).

The closing date for casting votes is 31st December but to find out more about the show, here's some details that I lifted from the organisers' website -

Art-Pie, London based bloggers collective bringing you street and modern art encounters straight on your screen, has been sponsored by Curious Duke Gallery (CDG) and are asking you, the public, to vote in a top 50 of artists in our open submission competition for unrepresented artists to win a chance to exhibit their work in The Curious Art-Pie Show in February 2014, in CDG’s East London space.

All submissions will be live online under artists entries, giving you the chance to cast your discerning vote on these creative talents by the 31/12/2013. Your carefully chosen top 50 will then be whittled down to 20 by our panel of industry insiders, culminating in the line up for The Curious Art-Pie Show. Showcasing from 6th – 12th February 2014 in Curious Duke Gallery’s 300 year old building, we look forward to seeing you there (and your choices)!

Let the fun begin!

White Out

I've been so busy the last month and a half, working on designs for the interior of the new Ping Pong restaurant in Wembley that I've not had much time for any blog updates of late. But I'll just give a quick mention of the group show, White Out, in which I'll be exhibiting my most recent screen print, Morphed Components.

The exhibition/event, curated by internationally renowned artist, Jill Rock, and featuring over 20 artists and performers, takes place at Hoxton's Hundred Years Gallery. Running from the 3rd December to the 9th January, the exhibition hosts a glorious array of artwork, poetry, film, music and performance art. Hopefully I'll have finished the Ping Pong design work in time to make it to the opening night on Thursday.

Here's the events schedule:

Opening: Thursday December 5th. 6:30;  CYCLOPS - performance by Jo Roberts and KMAT, plus Grassy Noel’s Journey In White, Jill Rock and Nicky Heinen’s  Be Not Afeared, and Giles Leaman Solo performance

Saturday December 7th. 7:00 – 10:30: Films by Robert Robertson, Nicky Scott Francis, Mervyn Diese

Sunday December 8th. 3pm – 6pm an afternoon of improvisation with Will Miles (flute), Matt Scott (accordion), Gabriel Keen (piano) and Ivor Kallin (viola)

Saturday 14th. 7.30 – 10.30: Jaime Valtierra programmed improvised event: ‘The Waiting’ with Eve Tenenbaum, Sofia Figurido, Eloise Carles, Grassy Noel, Jill Rock, Nicky Heinen, Yuri Pirondi, Ines Von Bonhorst, Cos Chapman

Sunday 15th. 3pm – 6pm; improvisation by Bitten By A Monkey with Steven Myers, Dylan Bates, Roland Bates…..

Saturday 21st 7:00 – 10:30 : Saturnalia – a night of mis-rule Sunday 22nd Gilgamesh 3pm – 6pm- interpretation by Richard Cardew, reading by Jill Rock accompanied by Nicky Heinen

Saturday January 4th and Sunday January 5th; post coital poetry bash

Monster

The trailer for Monster has been out for a while now but at the time I absent mindedly forgot to give it a mention. So here it is.
As you may remember from some of my earlier posts, Monster is one of the nine short films that make up the movie, Blaze of Gory. In the trailer we see actress Sandra Wer as psychopathic killer and arsonist, Stacey, and in the background, a few of the 15 paintings that I created for the film.

Monster is about a young girl locked away in a high-security mental hospital for a series of brutal crimes and is based on the writings of Blaize-Alix Szanto, who wrote a series of very disturbing stories between the ages of 12 and 15. The cast includes scream-queen Victoria Broom, and ex-Coronation Street legend Martin Hancock. The film's director is Andy Edwards, whose previous horror anthology feature, the chilling triptych "Three's A Shroud", won the British Horror Award at the British Horror Film Festival 2012. 

To see stills from the set of Monster check out Paranoid Android Films on Facebook.

My Prints at Scream Editions

It's been a couple of years since I first exhibited my sculptures at Scream; back when they were still located in their original Mayfair gallery. And now you can find my prints amongst the those of an impressive collection of artists, on the online gallery, Scream Editions.

The site sells limited edition prints by a wide range of international artists. Both up and coming, and established. Amongst the more established are names such as Andy Warhol, Tracey Emin, Joan Miro, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Sir Peter Blake, and Gavin Turk.

But I was also pleased to see the names of a few of my friends amongst the list of Scream Editions artists. Friends who's work I'm pleased to be able to truthfully say that I'm impressed with. Fantastic artists like Remi Rough, David Shillinglaw, and L G White.

Restaurant Interior Designs

You may have noticed (or maybe not) that I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front of late. No, I've not been on holiday. A lot of my creative energy, over the last few weeks, has been diverted away from my personal projects, as I focus on a commercial one. I've been approached to produce some designs for the interior of one of the London branches of a well-known restaurant chain. Sometimes it's hard to sum up the same amount of enthusiasm for commercial work as it is for one's one projects but I must say, now I've got my teeth stuck into this one, I'm really enjoying it. I can't say too much about it at the moment, and here's a lot of hard work ahead, but once things start to take shape I'll post some photos of the end result.

In the meantime, here's an early sketch to give you a feel of where it's going. It's an idea for one side of a very large, four sided light box structure, that is intended to hang from the ceiling of the restaurant.

Islington Contemporary Art and Design Fair

On Sat and Sunday (5th and 6th October) I'll be exhibiting a few of my screen prints, paintings and sculptures in the Art Weekend of the Islington Contemporary Art and Design Fair at Candid Arts Galleries.

This Friday (4th October) we'll be having a private view from 5-9pm so please feel free to pop along, check out the artwork, meet the artists, and join us for a drink. If you don't know where Candid is, it's at 3 Torrens Street, directly behind Angel Tube Station. But here's a map.

Thank You Skull-A-Day

In all the rush of getting ready for last month's trip I didn't manage to thank those freaky folks at Skull-A-Day for mentioning my Swirly Skull tote bags, on their wonderfully addictive site. So now I'd like to send them a double thank you as they've just featured my recent Skull Tower painting.

For anyone that hasn't checked out their site then the blog's name pretty much says it all (resisting the urge to say that bloody awful 'what it says on the tin' phrase). Every day they feature a different skull image; be it a painting, drawing, sculpture or whatever. My favourites are the simulacra skulls, where people have submitted photos of everyday objects that bear skull-like markings. They're a bit like those photos where people claim to see the face of Jesus in a taco, or Mother Teresa in a Chelsea Bun. Although to be fare, pretty much all Chelsea bun's look a lot like Mother Teresa's face.

So if you're anything like me, and have had a life-long passion for anything skull-related, then this is definitely the site for you.

On Telly!

I'm finally back from my short but hectic around the world trip (taking in Dubai, Melbourne, Tasmania, Hong Kong, Alaska, New York and Virginia, before touching back down in London – all in 25 days), so I suppose I had better post some up-dates on what my artwork has been up to in my absence.

The inaugural We Are Art People exhibition (a group show in which I exhibited two sculptures and two prints) at the Naked Eye Gallery in Hove, East Sussex went so well that it got extended. And I'm looking forward to finding out how the special, one night only event on the 5th September, at Lounge Lover went. It was a sort of pre-launch of Laissez Fare Art. It was also the second time that I've exhibited along side Tessa Farmer who's work I unexpectedly came across at MONA, my now favourite museum, in Tasmania. MONA is what you'd expect a Bond villain's secret base to look like if he'd suddenly decided to give up his plans for world domination and convert it into a museum of strange and macabre art. Right up my street!

And another unexpected thing that happened to me whilst I was in Australia was finding out that my life-sized, self portrait, model kit sculpture, 'And When I'm a Man', appeared on the Channel 4 programme, Four Rooms, back here in the UK. I knew that the piece had been filmed for the programme but it was so long ago that I'd thought that maybe the channel might not use the footage. Anyway – if you want to see how things went you can check it out here (well, for the next 18 days anyway). The segment about my sculpture first appears around 20 minutes, 20 seconds into the show.

Two Out of Four Shows

Typical! I haven't had a new exhibition open for a couple of months, then I plan three weeks away from London (I'll actually be de-installing and couriering the Victoria and Albert Museum's touring Hollywood Costume exhibition, which will be taking me to Dubai, Melbourne, Hong Kong, New York and Virginia) and suddenly I get offered four exhibitions that take place during the time frame that I'll be away.

Needless to say, I won't be able to exhibit in all four shows, but I will be showing in two of them. The first one will be the inaugural We Are Art People exhibition at the Naked Eye Gallery in Hove (next to Brighton), East Sussex, from the 30th August to the 1st September. As I won't be around to deliver or collect my work I've had to massively down-scale what I'll be exhibiting, but I will still be showing a couple of screen prints and two small sculptures.

The second show will be a special, one night only event on the 5th September, at Lounge Lover in Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, London – to celebrate the launch of Laissez Fare Art. Entitled 'A Twisted Summer Night's Dream', the evening will have a loose fairytale theme, with sculptural/installation artworks, actors reciting lines from the bard's similarly titled play, and different scented rooms (courtesy of Etat Libre d'Orange Perfumes). Amongst the confirmed artists is the rather wonderful Tessa Farmer who's sinister 'fairies' are something else. Me? Well, I will be exhibiting my 'Sleeping Beauty Box' sculpture.

As for the two exhibitions that I won't be able to show in – one of them is 'Art at the Crypt: Alterations', curated by artist Ellie Geary. This show also opens on the 5th September, and takes place in the crypt at St. Giles Church, Camberwell. Luckily the show is to be the first in an on-going series of art exhibitions at the venue (which I hear also plays host to one of the best jazz clubs in London) so at least I'll be able to exhibit at one of their future shows.

The other one that I was invited to show in is an exhibition called Fifty By Fifty at the Nancy Victor Gallery in Fitzrovia, London (where I had my first solo show). This one looks amazing so I'm a bit gutted that I only got the call to exhibit a couple of days before heading off to Australia. Although, saying that – I've been working like crazy for the past few weeks, finishing off various design projects before flying off, so I wouldn't have had time to start and complete anything new for Fifty By Fifty anyway.

But if you are in London whilst any of these shows are on please pop along and let me know how they went.

Art Book Guy Interview

Here's my recent Art Book Guy interview with the very engaging art collector, writer, and full-time broadcast journalist, Michael K. Corbin.

WAYNE CHISNALL: ORGANIC STRUCTURES

 I saw Wayne Chisnall’s work online www.waynechisnall.blogspot.com and found it very intriguing.  This British artist sculpts and paints with a somewhat dark yet humorous insight.  He’s also a cool dude.  Here’s our chat…

MICHAEL: Hey Wayne, First off, your wood sculptural work is very intriguing. The pieces are mechanical and organic at the same time. Some look robotic and somewhat human. What inspires you to create these works?

WAYNE: Hi there, Michael. I've always been fascinated by the pure functionality of organic structures and the elegant forms that nature throws up. As a youngster, I would endlessly draw and paint vines and root systems, trying to authentically capture the flow and form of something that has grown rather than been man-made. And when I moved from being a 2D artist to a 3D one, I suppose that this love of the organic crept into my sculptural work. Even though a lot of my work incorporates very geometric structures (boxes and towers etc.), I like to construct them with an organic aesthetic or at least incorporate organic elements. And there are times that I might deliberately leave out anything that has the flow of an organic structure because I like the visual dichotomy of a piece with a rectilinear, 'boxy' look, but that mimics a mechanism from nature. A prime example of this would be my 'Crutch and Tumour Box' sculpture which is inspired by the rogue cell-producing properties of a cancerous mass and has a mutated, yet still geometric, appearance. Apart from some of my earlier fiberglass pieces and my more recent Pharos Cyclops sculptures, I hadn't seen myself as a figurative sculptor, even though a lot of my work will incorporate small elements from the figure; maybe an eye here, or some teeth there etc. But saying that, because of my anthropomorphic side, I do tend to imbue, or at least imagine, some of my works with human personality traits. And I guess that some of my artist friends must share similar sensibilities as one of them saw my 'Orifice Tower' sculpture at a recently exhibition and said that she saw it as a humorous self portrait. I love it when people see stuff in my work that I didn't. Just because I'm the creator of my work, I don't believe that mine should be the definitive explanation or interpretation of it.

MICHAEL: Most of us take wood for granted and don't think much about it. Yet you work with it all of the time. What have you learned about wood as a result?

WAYNE: Oddly enough, I was dreaming about pieces of wood this morning. If you hadn't asked me that question, I'm sure that I would have soon forgotten about it. It wasn't a very interesting dream. From what I can vaguely remember, I was anxiously trying to find a small strip of wood for a certain job.  Wood is such a beautiful and versatile material. I don't have any traditional carpentry skills, but after working with the material for so long, you tend to develop a feel for its strengths and weaknesses and how far you can push it. Some of my wooden structures might look a little ramshackle in construction, but if you look closely, you'll notice that the vast majority of the joints are interlocked in a way that, even without having been glued, they are strongly held together. I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to the little details in my work; lots of my wooden sculptures will contain box structures with internal passageways or details that are hidden from view. But I enjoy the fact that I know that they are there, even if no-one can see them. Yet it's not just the feel and versatility of wood that I love. It's the appearance and the patina that can from old wood over years of interaction with people or the environment. I find it hard to walk past an old bit of wood and not drag it back to my studio for potential use. As a result, my studio is starting to fill up with piles of wood and other found materials – to the point where my work space is now being encroached upon.

MICHAEL: So you work with wood that you find on the street.  Do you get it from anywhere else?

WAYNE: I work part-time at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and have managed to source quite a bit of wonderful-looking old wood from there; mostly the backboards of old frames and early/mid 20th Century packing crates that were destined for the skip. With wood like this, you get a real feel of its personal history – the dust, stains, evidence of wear, old labels, archaic styles of handwriting etc.

MICHAEL: I find it so interesting that you also work in a great museum. That explains the elaborate and intricate nature of your work. What's it like for you to be around all of that great work of the past and yet create cool contemporary work of your own?

WAYNE: The V and A is a unique place to work. A lot of people forget that it's a museum of design (probably the biggest one in the world), so its collection and exhibitions cover both ancient and modern items. And it's with the museum's contemporary collections and exhibitions that I most enjoy working.  Although I get to handle some of the most amazing treasures and objects, both from the V&A's collection and lent by museums and collections from all around the world (one of my highlights having been getting to hold a couple of da Vinci sketchbooks), I don't think that the museum environment influences my work as much as you might think. Obviously, the recycled materials (from the museum) that I use in my work have a bearing on the visual appearance of my sculptures, and some of the knowledge that I've picked up regarding the archival nature of certain materials has influenced what I will and won't use in my work, but in general, my influences lie outside of the museum's collection. I'm probably just as likely to find inspiration in a piece of debris that I find lying in the street as I am from anything by the great masters.

MICHAEL: Your work also seems to have a diabolical, mad hatter vibe to it (in a good way). The end result of your sculptures and paintings make me think you've just emerged from your foggy laboratory where you've just completed your latest concoction of disparate items that mean nothing alone, but when combined with other things, they make one wicked stew. HAHAHAHA!

WAYNE: Thank you, that means a lot to me. I'm a firm believer in trying to ensure that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts – although you still have to choose your parts carefully. I sometimes wonder what people must think when they visit my flat or my studio for the first time. I'm just so used to massing odd items and materials that I collect, for use in my work, that I no-longer question it. It's only when your guests have left that you suddenly think 'oh, maybe that birdcage full of bones, the pile of dismembered dolls, the human skull and all those drawers labeled 'insects, teeth, hair, and dead things' might seem a bit of an odd thing for a normal human being to have in their living space.’ I remember once having a friend come to visit and he stayed overnight in a spare room that I was using as a temporary work space. He said that he didn't sleep a wink because it was like trying to sleep in a museum of the macabre. But I think he was exaggerating.

MICHAEL: You can find out if he was exaggerating by inviting him back. Somehow, I think he did not sleep a wink. LOL. You know, whenever I chat with artists who work with found objects, it always reminds me that everything retains a sense of nobility even after it has been discarded. This is especially true of human beings, No?

WAYNE: That's interesting. I'd not really thought about it as a sense of nobility before. But I totally get where you're coming from. I find these bits of detritus and can't help but see them as having an essence that they've somehow picked up along the way – either through age and interaction with their environments or through human contact. I suppose that this resonance is more obviously felt with natural materials; especially something like bone or hair.

MICHAEL: What's with the doll heads and skulls? I'm choosing to believe this is more about fun and not your "dark side."

WAYNE: Maybe it's a bit of both. I've been told that I have a dark sense of humour. But I think that that's a very normal English trait anyway. The doll parts were originally leftover pieces from a doll version of the life-size model kit sculpture, 'And When I'm a Man,’ that I made of myself. But I have been collecting more doll parts for two new sculptures that were intended for the windows of a restored Anglican chapel in Nunhead Cemetery, in South London. The project was due for installation this September, however the curator was unsure of how the more conservative residents of the area, might view the subject matter, so I've decided to pull out of the project rather than submit a watered-down version. When I was selected for the project, I was asked to chose an existing stained glass window as an inspiration for my installation. I chose Herod's 'Massacre of the Innocents.’ Ironically, all the historical stained glass windows (in old churches and cathedrals throughout Europe), depicting this biblical subject, tend to be incredibly graphic and violent, whereas my piece would have had none of that. As for the human skull - it's to be the crowning glory of a new tower sculpture that I'm planning; not too dissimilar to my recent Orifice Tower piece, but hopefully even more intricate and detailed. I'm actually working on a 2D piece at the moment that was intended to be a large working drawing in preparation for the sculpture, but I got a bit carried away and it's now become a painting. I came by the skull through quite a nice piece of serendipity. A researcher for Channel 4 asked me if I'd be interested in letting them feature one of my sculptures on the latest series of their TV show, ‘Four Rooms.’ I said yes and when I was in the green room of their studio, I got chatting to an antiques dealer who also had a piece in the show. We both got talking about what we do and I mentioned that I'd been looking for a real human skull for one of my sculptural projects. He told me that he had one that he'd picked up from a medical auction and promised to send me pictures of it once he got home. True to his word, he did. However, when I saw it, I realised that its upper and lower jaws were missing, which meant that it wouldn't be suitable for what I had planned. But as is often the case with interesting finds, the image of the skull took root in my mind and the idea for Skull Tower germinated. But I'm still on the lookout for a complete human skull for the original project, so if any of your readers out there know of one, please let me know. Sorry – thought I'd just get that in, because you never know...

MICHAEL: How is the sculpting process different from painting for you? I know that they're both about expression, but how do you determine which you will do on any given day?

WAYNE: My flitting between 2D and 3D works is usually dependent upon when a deadline for one project or other is coming up or simply because of what I feel like working on next. If I've been working for a long time on sculptural pieces, I sometimes feels like having a break by switching to something 2D. Nowadays, most of my time is divided between sculpting and drawing. I think that when I first discovered my love of sculpting, I lost some of my interest in the painterly aspect of painting and a lot of my proceeding paintings became quite graphic and less tonal – probably little more than coloured drawings.

MICHAEL: Finally Wayne, what's the point of art? Don't we have more important things to talk about like healthcare and the homeless? What difference does art make in today's world?

WAYNE: I think that art is the most and least important thing in the world. As an optimistic nihilist, I realise that everything is impermanent and ultimately pointless unless seen as something that should just be enjoyed for what it is and for the brief time that it exists. So I say do what makes you happy or fulfilled. For me, that is art. I can't say what difference art makes in today's world, but I'm not sure that I'd like to live in a world without it. Some years ago, a friend once asked me something similar. He asked, “What's the point in art?” Oddly enough, he now has quite a collection of my work; most of it up on his living room wall.

MICHAEL: Mission accomplished!  Thanks Wayne, this has been great. Check out Wayne Chisnall at www.waynechisnall.blogspot.com.

PAFI Award

I'd like to say thank you to Part Art Fair International for the honourable mention that they gave me in this month's PAFI Award, and for having my Orifice Tower sculpture as one of the eight featured artworks.

Ollie Bennett Secret Cards Revealed

Now that the 2013 Ollie Bennett Secret Cards sale is over I can reveal my entries. Here are two of the six cards that I created for the show.

You can find all six on my Oodles of Doodles blog.

This year's entries are all painted in acrylic and based upon details of my large painting, Death by Twister, which was originally created for a FOAD (a rather raucous art collective that I was involved with back in the noughties) exhibition called 'By Misadventure'.

Ollie Bennett Secret Cards

Once again the Ollie Bennett Secret Cards sale is almost upon us. I will be up in Shropshire, attending my Gran's birthday party on the evening of the sale so I'd planned to enter the raffle to try and assure myself a chance of getting my sticky fingers on one or two of my favourite cards from the show. But unfortunately I spent most of this weekend working on designs for an upcoming project and missed the raffle entry deadline – pants! So I DEMAND that whoever ends up buying my favourite entry by the painter, Elinor Evans, grant me visiting rights... Phew!!!! Okay... I've put it behind me now... time to move on!

This year I've donated six pieces to the charity, but as it's a secet (you only find out which card has been created by which artist once you've bought it) here's an image of one of my postcard-sized pencil sketches from last year's sale.

The sale takes place at Westminster School, London SW1P 3PB, this Friday (21st June) from 6:30-8:30 pm, but you can click here for further details.

Here's a bit about the charity (lifted from their site) -
“Oli Bennett was a young man killed in the 9/11 world trade centre attack. The charity is set up in his name to provide funding and grants for young people with business ideas, many of who are from an underprivileged background. It operates in a similar way to the Prince’s Trust. The fund has helped a wide variety of young people in the past set up businesses as wide ranging as wood recycling, sports coaching, fashion designing, jewellery making, ceramics, Car valeting, cake making etc.”

The Mill Interview

Here's the recent feature that The Mill ran on me and my work, for their blog.

Wayne Chisnall and his June Window Exhibition

Wednesday, June 05, 2013
The Great Marlborough Street, London window has had a summer re-skin this week, with rising star of the art and sculpture world Wayne Chisnall exhibiting his latest creations. I caught up with Wayne to learn more about his previous projects and what inspires his unique approach to material he uses.



You have tried your hand at many areas of art; magazine & technical illustration, printmaking and now you create spectacular sculptures, what drew you to this area of expertise?
My dad was an oil painter so I grew up with the sight and smell of art materials all around me, therefore art has been my passion for as far back as I can remember. All my life I'd been a predominantly 2D artist but it wasn't until I went to University and unexpectedly switched from printmaking to sculpture that I suddenly found a medium that I felt to be more truthful to what I wanted to express through my art. Somehow I felt that by working in 3D I was able to convey my ideas on a greater number of levels. I suppose that because sculptures physically occupy space in the same world as we do, on a level that something like a drawing doesn't, they have more to say - but that might just be how I see things. Of course, I still love drawings and paintings etc.



How did you approach The Mill window?
I decided to exhibit some of the more recent, or rarely shown, sculptures that I thought were quite strong pieces in themselves, but which also worked well as a group. In the deeper window I have, Orifice Tower, Pharos Cyclops #1 and #2, and in the shallow window, Planetoid 210. Although all three pieces (for the sake of argument I'll call 'Pharos Cyclops #1 and #2 one piece for now) share certain commonalities, they are also examples of different lines of enquiry that I have pursued. For this installation I wanted to give an insight into the divergent aspect of my practice; to show how various works can trigger ideas for newer and slightly different pieces, which in turn lead to further, and therefore more distantly related, works. To highlight this aspect of the development of my work I displayed the two Cyclops pieces on bright green deckchairs, the colour of which is a reference to one of my earliest sculptures, And When I'm a Man (I'll Think as a Man).



Being bright green and made of fibreglass, plastic and resin, this earlier work offers a stark contrast to the direction of much of my current work. Incidentally, when I was installing the work, someone commented on the green of the deckchairs being very similar to that of the green screen used in the visual effect industry. I hadn't even thought of it at the time but I guess it ties in nicely with what The Mill does.



Who and what inspires you?
There are so many wonderful sculptors out there but most of my primary influences lie elsewhere. Growing up, I was a big fan of sci-fi and horror literature and films - which is probably where much of my work gets its dark leanings, although now I hope that there is a bit of humour in there too. I can see the choice of found materials that I use in my sculptures emerging from my early love of the strange and uncanny animations of people like Jan Svankmajer and the Brothers Quay, who's work I still have a soft spot for today. I also have a bit of an obsession with the Minkisi/Nkisi wood carvings of the Congo area, which been very influential in my Nail Box and Nail Heart series of works.



Without sounding too hippy, I'm also inspired by nature, especially vines and root systems. Even though I have very geometric elements to a lot of my work I try and incorporate an organic construction model where I can. Drawing is a very important part of my practice and for most of my sculptures I make numerous sketches, prior and during the construction process. My drawing style varies, depending upon what I'm working on, but I honed it during my time as a technical and magazine illustrator back in the 80's and early 90's. Saying that, I've had a life-long love of comic and book illustration so there will be influences from these fields that are probably too numerous to mention.

What has been your favourite project?
I'm not sure if I have favourite projects but do I have a secret art project that I'm not supposed to talk about (the 1st rule of Fight Club etc...) that is a lot of fun. I'll try not to give too much away but it started back in July 2005 (oddly enough, on the day of the London bombings) and is still ongoing. Basically the project is a chain of exchanges between myself and a performance artist called Calum F Kerr. We modelled the exchange on scenes from old cold war spy movies and now we film ourselves making these exchanges. We always meet at the same location (a park bench somewhere in London) at a set time on a set day of the week (but not every week). One of us will get there first, then the other will join him on the bench but we deliberately make no acknowledgement of each other. Then one of us will place a parcel, wrapped in brown paper, between us on the bench, and other will nonchalantly take it. Whoever placed the parcel on the bench walks away first, then the other person a short while later (exiting in opposite directions). Which ever one of us accepts the parcel (containing an object or detailed instructions created by the other) has to create something inspired by the contents of said parcel and then wrap it up in brown paper and continue the chain at the next encounter. As I said, it's a lot of fun to take part in but it's also loosed up both of us as artists, as we've started to dip into each others mode of practice (if only a little). Now I've probably said too much.



Talk us through the reoccurring themes evident in your sculptures?
The tower is one of the main reoccurring themes that runs through my work. All the sculptures in my first tower series where mounted on over-sized wheels and were to do with our attitudes toward material possessions, and how our accumulation of  'stuff' limits our mobility. My most personal piece from this series, The City, was to be the springboard for a lot of later pieces - namely the numerous but much smaller-sized box series (also on wheels). In fact the wheels themselves became a motif  of most of my sculptural work until relatively recently. As the magnified lens aspect of my box structures started to give way to the carved orifice feature (a further attempt to integrate the organic and the rectilinear) so too the wheeled theme stared to disappear and the structures became more tower-like again. A prime example being Orifice Tower, which is basically an elevated box. The thing that I enjoy about working this way is that it feels very natural, like a process of evolution. Forms emerge, disappear, and sometimes re-emerge.

What else is happening for you this year?
So far I have a sculpture on display in an alumni exhibition at my old university in Northampton and I've been asked to create a couple of two metre tall pieces that will be displayed in the windows of a renovated Anglican chapel in Nunhead Cemetery this September. I've also been sketching designs for a new series of tower sculptures but at the moment I've over filled my studio with materials, so until I sort out extra storage space, I'm working on drawings and ideas for editioned prints in my 2D studio (which is also starting to fill up with materials). One of these print ideas is an adaptation of a photo from a newspaper, showing police attacking protesters. But I'm painting out the protesters and replacing them with cartoon bunnies. It's quite a fun but surprisingly thought provoking piece - I'm pleased with how it's going.



But the project that I'm most excited about at the moment is my plan to bring out my own currency (well, sort of). I'm looking to print 20,000, hand signed and numbered, editions of a small double sided art print that takes the form of a fictitious banknote - a 5 Chig (taken from my nickname) note. The designs on both sides will be based upon my artworks and drawings but I'm looking to print on authentic-feeling banknote paper and incorporate watermarks and holographic foils - and use two different printing techniques, one of which will have a slight raised quality. The only problem that I'm currently having is the sourcing of authentic-feeling cotton/linen banknote paper - for obvious anti-counterfeiting reasons.

//Thanks Wayne for this revealing look into your inspirations and creations. Wayne will be exhibiting for the next two months, so pay us a visit and have a peek at the art in person.

Alumni Show

This year, for the first time, my old college, The University of Northampton decided to host an Alumni Art Exhibition alongside their student end of year shows. And I was very pleased to have been invited to be in the show. The exhibitions run till Friday 21st June but I went along to the opening night on Thursday and had fun catching up with a few old college friends, tutors and technicians.

The piece that I'm exhibiting is a tall, thin, wall-mounted, low-relief sculpture called 'Orifice'. It's not a new piece but it is the inspiration behind one of the themes currently running through my work. I'm not sure whether 'incestuous' or 'self referential' best describes my sculptural work these days. I have noticed that not only do certain physical motifs keep reappearing in a lot of my pieces but that elements from different sculptures are now combining in newer works – almost as if they have been cross-breeding.

Swirly Skull Tote Bags

The lovely folk at Tenderproduct (the merchandise store linked to the Tenderpixel gallery - both located in Cecil Court WC2N 4HE, just off Leicester Square in London) have asked me to produce a small edition of tote bags featuring my Swirly Skull design. The shop already sells my Spidey Pods screen prints, along with both my Swirly Skulls and Swirly Skulls on Pink screen prints. Because of the popularity of the skulls prints they thought it would be ideal as a bag design – and also a lot more affordable.

So I've just had a limit number of these Earth Positive, carbon neutral, 100% organic cotton plain weave, 120 g/3.5 oz, tote shopping bags produced with my Swirly Skull design screen printed on the one side. The bags are roughly 42 x 38 cm (not counting the handles).
They won't be in the gallery shop for a couple of weeks yet, so for now I'm selling them at the commission-free price of £10 each. If you would like one, drop me an email at waynechisnall@yahoo.co.uk and we'll sort something out.

I spent hours trying to visualize the perfect size to have the image. When they came back from the printers I was very happy with the results. The print quality is fantastic, the bags are lovely, and I think that the image size is just right – nice and bold, without being too big for the bag. To say that I'm chuffed would not be an understatement.

Art at The Mill

I'm happy to say that's, art-wise, it's been a busy week for me. On Tuesday I got my cotton tote bags (screen printed with my Swirly Skull design) back from the printers (more about them in a later post), Thursday I was in Northamptonshire delivering my Orifice sculpture to The University of Northampton, ready for the Alumni Art Exhibition that will be running alongside the university's graduate shows, Friday I collected two of my sculptures from where they've been on display in the Artfinder office, then went to my first get-together of an artists' network group called Sculpture Tribe, and today (Saturday) I installed four of my sculptures in the window display area of the visual effects company, The Mill.

Based in London, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, The Mill collaborate on award-winning (you can't help but notice the prominently displayed Oscar and two BAFTA awards as you walked into their London base) moving image, design and digital projects for the advertising, film, TV, games and music industry. They also put the two massive front windows of their London building to good use as a display areas for contemporary artwork.

So I was rather pleased when they invited me to exhibit my work in their London space (40-41 Great Marlborough Street, at the top of Carnaby Street, and a few doors along from the Liberty Store) for the whole of June and July.

So this morning I installed four works; in the deeper window, Orifice Tower, Pharos Cyclops #1 and 2, and in the shallow window, Planetoid 210. Although all three pieces (for the sake of argument I'll call 'Pharos Cyclops #1 and 2' one piece for now) share certain commonalities, they are also examples of different lines of enquiry that I have pursued. For this installation I wanted to give an insight into the divergent aspect of my practice; to show how various works can trigger ideas for newer and slightly different pieces, which in turn lead to further, and thus less related, works. To highlight this aspect of the development of my work I displayed the two Cyclops pieces on bright green deckchairs, the colour of which is a reference to one of my earliest sculptures, And When I'm a Man (I'll Think as a Man). Being bright green and made of fibreglass, plastic and resin, this earlier work offers a stark contrast to the directs of much of my current work.

Monster Movie

I don't know how long it will be until the Blaze of Gory movie comes out but her are a few stills from the set of 'Monster', which is one of the nine stories that make up the film.

Here we see actress Sandra Wer as psychopathic killer and arsonist, Stacey, and in the background, a few of the 15 paintings that I created for the film.

This still shows actor Martin Hancock, who plays Terry in the Monster segment of the film, and a few more of my paintings.

And here with have Monster's director, Andy Edwards, putting the crew through their paces.
To see more stills from the set of Monster check out Paranoid Android Films on Facebook.

Blaze of Gory

I'm currently having a bit of fun working on a series of paintings for a new horror film called Blaze of Gory that features nine separate stories told by nine different horror directors from around the world. 
“All the short films are based on the writings of a teenage girl called Blaize-Alix Szanto, who wrote these stories between the ages of 12 and 15. They are truly depraved tales of horror and torture that have made even the hardest horror directors uneasy.” 

The section that I've been asked to produce the work for is called "Monster" and is about a young girl locked away in a high-security mental hospital for a series of brutal crimes. The talented cast includes scream-queen Victoria Broom, and ex-Coronation Street legend Martin Hancock. It is directed by Andy Edwards, whose previous horror anthology feature, the chilling triptych, "Three's A Shroud", won the British Horror Award at the British Horror Film Festival 2012. 

So far I've come up with eight paintings which will eventually be used to adorn the walls of the psycho girl's cell. They're a mixture of images of death, immolation, torture, and dismembered corpses - and are to appear to be the work of the girl herself. To prepare for this and to try and get into the right mindset I spent time looking through, amongst other things, a lot of autopsy photos – always a pleasant way to spend a relaxing Sunday! The last part of the 'Monster' segment of the movie takes place in Professor Damocles's office, and there's a chance that some of my sculptures might also make it this scene. But lets wait and see!

Move Over Tooth Fairy

Do any of you kind folks out there have any unwanted teeth that you wouldn't mind donating to me, for use in some artworks that I'm planning? I don't know - maybe the Tooth Fairy over reached her quota and needs to off-load a few. Either way, I'd be most grateful for any donations and promise to use them in a respectfully frivolous manner.

Now I'm not advocating that you pull out any of your own teeth (unless you really want to - hey! they're your teeth – who am I to say what you choose to do with them), or anyone else’s for that matter (unless you're a dentist – then that's kind of a given), but if you do have some already lying around and would generously like to pass them on, please feel free to contact me at waynechisnall@yahoo.co.uk .

Win a Mini Print

For a chance to win one of my last few postcard-sized 'Swirly Skull on Pink' screen prints sign up to Twitter (if you're not already on it) and simply follow me and re-tweet my competition tweet from Tuesday 26th March. And I'll select a winner at random this Monday evening. Good luck!

My RCA Secrets 2013

The sale of the RCA Secret 2013 postcards has been up and running for some hours now so I'm guessing that it's safe to reveal my 3 entries for this year. And to all the brave souls who have queued (not to mention the hardened few who camp out over several nights) through the rain and cold, I salute you! 

This one I definitely know is safe to reveal as I received a text this morning from the lucky person who jammily won (via the RCA Secret's 'first 50 places raffle') second place in the queue, telling me that the person in front of him had bagged it. It was number 1435 in the exhibition, and is probably my most 3D postcard entry to date. For anyone that knows my recent sculptural work it probably wasn't the most difficult piece of mine to spot in the the show. To construct the piece I cut and interlocked the wooden sections to form a box and carved the front to create the orifice section. Inside I placed a mirror to give the postcard the illusion of being internally deeper than it is externally. Hopefully the mirror also adds an unexpectedly fun element as upon initial inspection, the viewer might not expect to suddenly be confronted with their own reflection looking back at them from within the box. 

I'm not not sure what number this postcard was in the show, but it's adapted from an idea that I have for a tall, thin, wooden framed, tower sculpture that I'm planning to build. The eventual sculpture will incorporate a human skull that I acquired from an antiques dealer that I got chatting to whilst I was in the green room at a TV studio for a Channel 4 programme, 'Four Rooms', that is about feature one of my sculptures. 

As I mentioned earlier, this year I only entered three postcards into the RCA Secret. I normally enter more as my (not quite) alter ego, Chig. But this year I didn't receive any cards addressed to my nickname so entry number 1210 (one of the cards entered under my given name) is probably closer to previous drawings that I've entered as Chig. It's much more instinctive and free flowing.