Gender Kit - Work In Progress

'Gender Kit (Basic Model)', the sculpture that I'm currently working on, is a prime example of my relaxed attitude to the concept of a work ethic. I cast the two genital sections of the sculpture over twenty years ago, back in the 90s when I was an art student. From then until now the two pieces had just sat in a box and every year or so something would remind me about them and I'd think ' I must get round to finishing that piece someday'. Well, that day has now come round.

'Gender Kit' sculpture (work in progress) by British artist, Wayne Chisnall

The volunteers for the casting process involved in the construction of the two resin genital sections were myself and my then girlfriend and fellow art student (whose name, to help preserve her modesty, maybe I shouldn't mention here over social media). There's a funny story about the casting of her section but I'll mention that in the next post about the sculpture, once it's completed.

I'm not sure what prompted me to finish the work. Maybe it was someone commenting on my first model kit piece or maybe it's something to do with the whole issue of gender being more relevant now than ever before. Either way, I'd like to say a big thank you to a dear friend, Ian Fenton, for 3D printing the sprue/runner corner sections, T junctions and domed end pieces for me. This made the construction of the sculpture so much easier and vastly more stable than with my earlier model kit-inspired pieces. Which brings me round to the inspiration behind the work. As a child in the early 70s I was obsessed with horror movie characters, dinosaurs, super heroes and space ships, and would spend hours of fun and frustration building model kit versions of them. So I'd like to say a massive thank you to Airfix and the other model kit companies (and the modellers who created the original models which were then turned into kit form) for that element of my formative years.   

'And When I'm a Man, I'll Think As a Man' model kit-inspired sculpture by British artist, Wayne Chisnall

This sculpture was initially intended to be an accompanying piece to my much larger model kit-inspired sculpture, 'And When I'm a Man, I'll Think As a Man', which I also started (and managed to finish) during the second year of my BA Fine Art degree way back in the 90s. Incidentally the photo you see here of 'And When I'm a Man, I'll Think As a Man', which includes me for scale (I used to just show photographs of the work on its own but people would often presume that the sculpture was an actual model kit, about 8" across), not just for vanity, was taken many years after I constructed the sculpture. It was shot by the photographer, Phil Sofer (thanks mate), in 2011 at the Scream gallery in Mayfair, London, where I was exhibiting a number of sculptures at the time.