I was Googling my name (come on, we've all done it) and came across an
interview that I gave a few years ago to New York City's art collector, writer
and full-time broadcast journalist, Michael K. Corbin, for his
ArtBookGuy site.
I'd almost forgotten about the interview so decided to re-read it to see
if
any of what I'd waffled on about back then
was still pertinent to my practice today and to see if any of the then-current
projects I was planning actually came to fruition. Spoiler! - I've still not
started on the Skull Tower sculpture.
After deciding that not everything I had to say back then was total tosh I thought I'd
share the article with you. Here's the text from my chat with Michael. To help
break up the paragraphs and to give some points of reference to what's being
discussed in the article, I've included
a few images for this blog post. So here it is...
 |
| One of two human-sized 'Pharos Cyclops' sculptures by UK artist, Wayne Chisnall |
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.
 |
| 'Crutch and Tumour Box' sculpture by British artist, Wayne Chisnall |
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.
 |
| Detail of 'Orifice Tower' sculpture by UK artist, Wayne Chisnall |
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 20
th 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.
 |
| British sculptor, Wayne Chisnall, working with found materials in his London studio |
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&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.
 |
| Detail of 'The City' sculpture by British artist, Wayne Chisnall |
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
amassing odd items and materials, 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.
 |
| Partial human skull for use in sculpture by British artist, Wayne Chisnall |
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.
 |
| 'Baby Kit' sculpture by British artist, Wayne Chisnall |
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...
 |
| Judges on Channel 4 (British TV) show, 'Four Rooms', viewing 'And When I'm a Man' sculpture by artist Wayne Chisnall |
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.
 |
| 'The Ambassadors' painting by British artist, Wayne Chisnall |
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.
Michael K. Corbin is an avid art collector, writer, full-time broadcast
journalist, yogi and runner. A New York City native, he travels far and wide
for art's sake. He writes for various art websites that include www.absolutearts.com
and of course, www.artbookguy.com.
