Release

Following on from ‘Constrictor’ (or ‘Lesser Love Constrictor’. I’m still not settled on a title yet), ‘Release’ is the latest piece in my ‘Never let You Go’ series of sculptures; a series in which I’ve been making hand-stitched (because Lycra/Elastane is a bugger to sew using a sewing machine), stuffed, fabric sausages that were initially each trapped within the tight embraces of mostly elongated, rib cage-like, vine structures. However, ‘Release’ has diverged from the rest of the sculptures in the series by being a piece that is about breaking free from confinement.

 

'Release', 2024, artist Wayne Chisnall

When making the piece, I intended the sausage element to appear as if it has burst out (as if from under high pressure) from some device in which it had long been imprisoned. Now I look at it, the thought of a gene emerging from an ancient and barnacle-encrusted lamp comes to mind, but I don’t think that was part of my original intention. I have been reading a lot of folk and fairy tales lately, so maybe that’s colouring my perception.

 

'Release' (detail), 2024, artist Wayne Chisnall

The base of the sculpture is a piece of 50s or 60s car gearbox that I found on a recent holiday/material gathering expedition when an old school friend, Ian Armstrong, and I stayed at his family’s cottage on the Scottish Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides. Initially, I picked up the salt and weather-corroded chuck of metal because I loved its intrinsic sculptural qualities. Now I’m trying to work out if this component triggered the idea for the sculpture, or whether I partly formed the idea for the sculpture and then realised that the bit of machinery would make the idea work. Chicken or egg time, I guess!

'Release', 2024, artist Wayne Chisnall