Horned God Orifice Box

This small box sculpture is primarily inspired by one of my earlier sculptures – a wall-mounted, low relief sculpture, simply called ‘Orifice’ (because of its carved wooden aperture) that I made 8 years earlier in 2002.

 

'Horned God Orifice Box' by artist Wayne Chisnall

The other influence for the piece is the figure of Cernunnos, the horned god from Celtic mythology. The HornedGod is also one of the two primary deities found in Wicca and some related forms of Neopaganism, representing the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system - the consort of the female Triple Goddess of the Moon or other Mother goddesses. As you can see from the photos, I used small branches to allude to the horned element of the god in question. Even though it’s wood emerging from wood, I like the way that the flat dimensions of the box structure contrast with the organic forms of the ‘horns’.

 

The Cernunnos-type antlered figure or horned god, on the Gundestrup Cauldron, on display, at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen

Evolving out of a long series of small, wheeled box sculptures (that were themselves a progression from my earlier box tower sculpture, The City), Horned God Orifice Box is the first of these small box pieces that dispensed with the magnified glass window, and instead adopted the carved wooden orifice.

 

'Horned God Orifice Box' by artist Wayne Chisnall

As well as the obvious sexual interpretation of the orifice element (as manifest in the top section of this piece), my main interest in the device, lies in it being the portal between the internal and the external.

 

'Horned God Orifice Box' (rear view) by artist Wayne Chisnall

The actual inspiration for the original 'Orifice' sculpture came to me around 1999/2000 (when I was working as a cycle courier in London) as I saw a van drive past me with a puncture hole in its side, and I noticed how the metal around the puncture had taken on a strangely organic appearance, not too dissimilar to the swollen and raised skin around a small cut that I had on the back of my hand at the time. It's strange where and when inspiration for artwork can come from. Maybe if I hadn't spotted that van at that particular moment in time, a whole body of work wouldn't now exist.

 

'Horned God Orifice Box' by artist Wayne Chisnall

Title: Horned God Orifice Box. Dimensions: 41 x 37 x 23.4 cm. Materials: wood and metal. Date: 2010