No RCA Secret This Year

Alas, there is to be no RCA Secret this year but fear not as next year's show has been moved forward from its usual November spot to March the 14th. I've already started work on my pieces for 2013 but as its a secret I guess I'll have to keep schtum for now. All I can say is that they should stand out from the rest of the work on show - oops! I've said too much already.

Here's one of my cards from last year's show but to see all of my entries feel free to check out my Oodles of Doodles blog post.

 
For anyone that doesn't know what the RCA Secret is, it's an annual (apart from this year, obviously) exhibition of postcards at the Royal College of Art in London. And on the last day of the show (next year's is Saturday 23rd March) all of the postcards are available to the public at very reasonable price - especially considering that some of the artists contributing would normally be selling their work for thousands of pounds. But here's the secret bit - each postcard in the exhibition is signed only on the back, so collectors won’t know the identity of the artists until they had made their purchases. For one day only, all the cards are sold to the public to support the RCA Fine Art Student Award Fund. With generous contributions of new work from hundreds of leading international artists and designers, RCA Secret continues to help hundreds of emerging artists at a formative stage in their careers.

But a word of warning - if you fancy buying a postcard do your research beforehand (spend a good few hours looking round the show and make a long list of your favourite pieces) and be prepared to get in the queue very early as hundreds of people turn up every year. Some people even camp out days or weeks beforehand to get a good spot in the queue. Alternatively, you can always enter the raffle for a chance to win one of the first few places in the queue. But even if you don't win a place and can't get to the show at ridiculous O'clock in the morning it has been known for work by very well known artists to still be available for sale quite late in the day so don't worry, just make a very long list of your favourites.

As well as taking a year out the next RCA Secret has a change of location, moving across the river to the Royal College of Art’s landmark development, the Dyson Building, off Battersea Bridge Road, SW11 4AS.

 For the best hints and tips on becoming an RCA Secret collector or to find out what it's all about I suggest listening to the fans themselves. Here's the RCA Secret blog. And if, by any chance, you haven't had enough of my waffling on then here is my interview that appeared on their blog last year.

FACK#1 – Artists Talk – Tues 9th October

Thank you to everyone who made it along to the opening night of FACK's first group exhibition yesterday at the Kensington and Chelsea College's gallery space. The show looked fantastic and I was proud to be exhibiting my Orifice Tower sculpture amongst such high calibre work. It was great seeing so many familiar faces at the show and getting to meet even more new ones.

I only manages to chat to a few of the exhibiting artists last night so I'm looking forward to returning to the gallery this Tuesday for the artists' talks from 6:30 onwards (although the actual talking bit probably won't start till 7 pm). On the night most of the participating artists (me included – yikes!) will each talk for about five minutes about their work.
So, if you couldn't make it to the opening night but would still like to see the exhibition then please feel free to pop along this Tuesday evening – where you'll also be able to hear, first hand, the stories and reasoning behind the work. And you at the back - no heckling!

FACK#1 – Opening Party – Tues 2nd Oct

On Tuesday 2nd October (6:30-9pm) we will be having an opening party for FACK#1 – the first art exhibition to feature work by the ever expanding FACK visual art community. The exhibition takes place at the Kensington and Chelsea College's new gallery space in Hortensia Road, London SW10 0QS and if you are reading this blog then you are more than welcome to come along.
The show runs from 3rd - 11th October and features an artists' seminar on Tuesday 9th October, from 7 -9 pm.

As part of the show I will be exhibiting my recently completed Orifice Tower sculpture along with work by 13 other artists - Joanna Sands, Yuko Shibata, Eve Wright, Clare Burnett, Susan Forsyth, Jens Marott, Vaclav Bajer, C. Morey de Morand, Vinita Khanna, Denise Bryan, Leigh Glover, Almuth Tebbenhoff and Ed Jones.

FACK is a forum for visual artists that delivers talks and information about creative practice and has created a community which allows artists a platform for discussion and debate. If you are an artist and wish to join FACK then please feel free to check us out.


Private View on Tuesday 2nd October from 6.30 to 9pm.

Kensington and Chelsea College. Hortensia Road, London SW10 0QS
Open Monday to Thursday 10.00 to 18.00 and Friday 10.00 to 16.00.

You can join FACK! for free, publish your profile and events, and be eligible for upcoming opportunities. http://fackartists.org.uk/join

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Morphed Components Print

Today I popped over to East Ham in East London to visit the chaps at Mula Printing and to see how my new prints are coming along. These guys work with some of the big names in Street Art so whenever I go round to their print studio it's always interesting to see what they've got in the pipeline.

The set of screen prints that they are producing for me are based upon my Morphed Components drawing. In the screen printing process they are using a special ink that is combined with graphite powder and which, when pushed through the mesh of the printing screen, will produce an image that closely resembles the original pencil drawing.
The purpose of my visit today was to check out the shade of the ink (and I must say that being the pros that they are, they got it spot on) and to work out where we need to crop the paper – hence my scribbly lines that you can see on the test print, in the photo.
 The prints are going to be available from the end of next week and will be in a signed and numbered edition of 50, on sheets of 54 x 52 cm archival paper. If you would like to reserve one then please feel free to drop me a line at waynechisnall@yahoo.co.uk .

Bye Bye Greeny

It's fourteen years since I first made my life-sized pre-assembly model kit sculpture (cast from my own body parts in twelve sections) and now I've had to say good bye to my Green Man as it has found a new home in the heart of London's medical district. The official, full title of the piece is 'And When I'm a Man (I'll Think as a Man)' but in conversation I always end up calling it the Green Man for short.

 Anyway, here it is – installed in its new and rather salubrious surroundings at Dawood and Tanner's specialist dental practice in Marylebone. As dental practices go, Dawood and Tanner are truly something special. Not only do they seem to be leading the way in the use of 3D scanning and rapid prototyping techniques in the medical field (check out the interesting cabinet of fabricated skull sections in their lobby) but Andrew Dawood is a talented artist himself, putting this fascinating technology to good use in his own sculptures - some of which are also on display at the practice.

Glofone Characters

For the past few months I've been working a new project, developing some cartoon characters for a new children's product. It's early days yet so it's probably best not to give away too many details but for a little more info and to see how some of my designs have been colourised and digitised you can check out Go With The Glo on Twitter – although, being a Twitter page, it also full of some rather randomness so you will have to sift through to find the relevant images.

The initial brief for the project called for the development of a few characters that were loosely based upon insects (to see the full set of early working drawings and how the characters developed check out my doodle blog) but they soon evolved into something a little more chimeric. The first character to break from the insect formula was a green chappy called Fugley. Here's a small model that I made of him.

And this picy shows him just before he got his green make-over; in a shade of ghastly green that some may recall from my And When I'm a Man sculpture. See – it all ties in (and who said my work was too diverse).

Here are a some pages of more recent character ideas but as I said, you can see all the working drawings and evolution of the characters in my doodle blog.

Quick-Fire Drawings

Now that I've got my scanned and laptop to finally start talking to each other I've been catching up with my backlog of unscanned drawings and posting some of them up on my Pictify page and on my Oodles of Doodles blog.

Most of the drawings that I've been uploading are from my quick-fire sketchbooks where I use a mixture of brush pens, permanent markers and Pilot Precise pens and try to make as many drawings as I can, in as short a time as possible. Some drawings can take a couple of seconds to execute while others might draw me in for a bit longer (like Grandad Skull above).

I do these quick-fire drawing exercises to free up the creative flow and have a bit of fun but it's surprising what can come out of them, especially when you are not concentrating too hard on what you are actually doing. Some of my most enjoyable scrawlings have come about through my recent practice of drawing whilst looking away from the page, as in the case of this Wonky Batman sketch.

There's something quite liberating about the lack of control and the freedom of line. It's something that would be quite difficult to consciously replicate if drawn in the usual manner.

And some of these quick-fire, look-away drawings I'll revisit with a grey brush pen, to add a little shading - which I also try to keep suitably scribbly.

VAMALGAM 5 (V&A Staff Show)

After a 3 year break the fifth incarnation of the Victoria and Albert Museum's, not so annual, staff show is finally here. With 79 entries, 'VAMALGAM 5' features more work by the museum's very talented staff than in any previous year. And I must say that the standard is even better than I remember from any of our previous shows.

Unfortunately the exhibition is in a part of the museum that is only accessible to V&A employees but hopefully next year's show will relocate to a part of the building where it can be seen by everyone.

In the upper right-hand quarter of the photo you can see my entry, 'Swirly Skulls on Pink'. This print had been my favourite out of my two versions of my Swirly Skulls prints but since I recently had them both framed I'm not so sure. Maybe I now prefer the simpler black on white version. It's interesting the difference a frame makes to a picture.

Oh, and yes, the guy on the right hand side of the photo isn't standing on a box - he really is that tall.

Nokia Connects Interview

Here's the results of my interview with the writer and photographer Adam Monaghan for Nokia Connects, as a follow up to their recent article Junk Rock! The 7 greatest upcycled artworks ever that featured one of my sculptures -

Wayne’s World: A unique insight into one of Britain’s “trashiest” artists

22 Jun 2012 Creativity Adam Monaghan

One minute you’re collaborating with John Malkovich the next you’re donating prints to Barack Obama. Sounds like a normal week, right? Well, it does if you’re Wayne Chisnall.




London based artist Chisnall is well known for his sculptural objects and boxes, but he is also an accomplished painter, print maker and illustrator with a long list of exhibitions and publications to his name. Chisnall’s work covers a variety of territory, but the artist says memory, containment and the physical and mental restrictions that possessions impose on us are key reoccurring themes. We recently featured his work in our post, Junk rock! The 7 greatest upcycled artworks ever  and thought it would be cool to hook up and find out more about one Britain’s most exciting “trash” artists.

You’ve created lots of great upcycled art. What motivates you to create sculptures from junk?
As an individual I despair at the disposable/throw away attitude of modern society but as an artist I enjoy working with ‘loaded’ materials – materials that the viewer can either empathise or identify with. There seems to be something more engaging about a material when it shows signs of wear and interaction with its environment; it gives it more life.



Your sculpture Magnet consists of lots of old toys. What inspired you to create it and what emotions do you hope it will provoke?
Magnet is part of a series of four wheeled tower sculptures that I made with the intention of each piece highlighting different aspects of our attitudes to material possessions. By using plastic toys to construct Magnet I wanted to say something about this worthless/disposable attitude we have towards certain materials. Ironically it was the one piece in the series that people keep pointing out bits of and saying ‘Oh my God, that’s an original such and such and worth x amount’… which I kinda like.



Just because I’m the one who created a piece of work I don’t believe that I own the definitive view on its meaning. Once an artwork is out there it’s owned by whoever sees it – although the first time I exhibited Magnet four little lads seem to have taken this notion literally! The exhibition invigilator told me that on the opening morning of the show he turned around and suddenly noticed that my piece had gone and that these four young lads had managed to wheel the sculpture out of the gallery and into the street before he could give chase and rescue it!

How important do you think art is in highlighting green issues?
That’s a hard one. I’m not sure how effective anything is in highlighting green issues since so often the people that the message will reach are probably the people who are already listening. I think that for a message to reach beyond that group it either has to be done with humour or has to be hard hitting, which is more difficult these days as we seem to have become more desensitised to the impact of powerful imagery.




There’s a long tradition of “rubbish” art. How do you see it evolving in the future?
Rubbish is probably the cheapest art material there is and as we seem to be producing it faster than we can bury it there’s obviously an ever growing supply – so I think the tradition still has a long road ahead of it. I like the idea of crossing the boundaries between different practises so maybe something like a collaborative art and archaeology project; excavating land fill sites might produce some interesting results. With rubbish, like our production of it, the creative potential is endless.

If you could hang out with any artist who would it be and why?
The animated films of the Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer have probably had more of an influence on my sculptural work than anything by any sculptor so I would have to say those are the guys I’d choose to chill with. I grew up fascinated by the dark, dream-like worlds that they created and the way that they brought found objects and random bits of detritus to life. It’s only when I watch their films now, having not seen them for years, that I realise just how profound an effect they have had on my work today.

Have you got any more upcycled sculptures planned? If so can you give us an idea of what to expect.
I’ve just completed two new sculptures; ‘Orifice Tower’, a 2m tall sculpture, mostly made from pieces of early to mid twenty century packing crates from the Victoria and Albert Museum and ‘Planetoid 210′, made from scrap wood and soil.
And I’m currently working on a new piece that from the outside will look like a pixelated sphere made up of tiny wooden boxes and little windows but will internally be made up of a mass of interlaced periscopes and mirrored chambers. It’s sort of the lovechild of two of my earlier sculptures, ‘The City’ and ‘Cardboard Brain’.

A fascinating insight into a fascinating artist, we’ll sure you’ll agree. But what do you think of “junk” art? Let us know here or at @Nokia_Connects

Last Week of Domus Show

The inaugural Domus art show is now in it's final week so for anyone who won't be able to get along to the showroom in person I thought I'd post a few pics to give you a little taste of what you're missing. The four amazing artists that I am exhibiting work alongside are David Mach (RA), Gary Martin, Alex Chinneck and Julian Wild. I was going to post a few photos from the opening party but all I found on my camera afterwards were a load of blurry photos of me hugging people whilst laughing my head off (not really the uncivilised behaviour that you would come to expect from an artist – I do apologize).

This is my 'Dreams of Being Batman' sculpture.

 And this is my new piece, 'Orifice Tower' – the first time it's been on public display.

 Here in the foreground you can see one of Gary Martin's rather splendidly executed resin, balloon sculptures – with my 'Kitchen Blue' painting in the background.

 This is also 'Planetoid 210's first public exhibition.

I'm very fond of this piece by Julian Wild.

 After spending so long cooped up in my studio I think that 'Nail Box' is quite enjoying the opportunity to check out all the ladies as they walk past the Domus window.

But for anyone that can make it along to the exhibition before it comes down on the 29th June here's the address - Domus, 50 Great Sutton Street, Clerkenwell, London EC1V 0DF (open 9-5pm, Monday-Friday).

Nokia Article - Junk Rock!

Regardless of what my ego might want to believe I always have more than one foot in the 'don't believe the hype' camp. However, it is still rather lovely to have my work featured in the recent Nokia Connects article Junk Rock! The 7 greatest upcycled artworks ever alongside works by such greats as Duchamp, Picasso, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Erika Iris Simmons, Seo Young-Deok and Thomas Allen.

The article is by the talented writer and photographer, Adam Monaghan and features my Magnet sculpture which, fortuitously, can currently be seen at the new Domus showroom in Clerkenwell, London (see posts below for full details). So if you would like to see the piece in the flesh, so to speak, feel free to pop along. The show will be on till 28th June and feature eight of my pieces alongside works by David Mach, Garry Martin (check out his hyper-realistic space hopper sculpture), Alex Chinneck and Julian Wild.

Planetoid 210 and the Saatchi Showdown

I know that sculptures don't generally do that well in the Saatchi Showdown but I've entered Planetoid 210 anyway.

'Planetoid 210' is one of six pieces that I'll showing at this month's art show at Domus, 50 Gt. Sutton Street, Clerkenwell, London from 14th - 28th June – (see the post below) alongside works by David Mach, Garry Martin and Alex Chinneck. The other works I'll be exhibiting are Orifice Tower, Component Drawing, Magnet, Dreams of Being Batman and Kitchen Blue.

Inaugural Domus Exhibition

This month I will be exhibiting a selection of my sculptures and drawings in a show alongside works by three amazing artists - David Mach (RA), Garry Martin, and Alex Chinneck.

The exhibition takes place at the new Domus space in Clerkenwell, London and runs for two weeks from Thursday 14th till Thursday 28th June (open 9-5pm, Monday-Friday). So if you are in the area any of those days please feel free to pop in and check out the artwork.

DOMUS CLERKENWELL, 50 GREAT SUTTON STREET, LONDON EC1V 0DF

New Work In Progress

Following on from my recent sculpture, Planetoid 210, I've decided to continue with the spherical theme and have started a new piece that will hopefully end up looking (if all goes well) like the love child of two of my other sculptures, The City and Cardboard Brain. Like Cardboard Brain, the new piece is going to be constructed primarily of interwoven periscopes and as with The City, I plan to use windows of magnified glass that will allow the viewer to peer into miniature environments, slotted in between the voids amongst the periscopes.
I say all this now but until the work starts to properly take shape its hard to tell how much space there will be for the miniature environments or if the overall shape will even be remotely spherical. These sculptures sometimes have a will of their own and refuse to conform – or is that just me anthropomorphising again?

 As you can see from this work in progress, it's early days yet. I've still not constructed enough periscopes to make the framework for even half of the sphere. I have a feeling that it's going to get trickier and trickier trying trying to fit all the internal sections together as the piece starts to take form but luckily I love that sort of thing.

This was the sketch that I made when I came up with the initial idea for the work. Admittedly it's not the most considered drawing in the world but I do have a habit of quickly forgetting ideas for artworks unless I jot something down on paper as soon as I think of it. So a lot of my drawings are little more than a few quick squiggles, but enough to act as a mental prompt.

Find Me On Pictify

I was sent an invite to join Pictify a few days ago. At first I was a little sceptical as every other day there seems to be another new social network/online art image bank popping up but I must admit that after an initial browse of the site, I've become somewhat addicted. Every few seconds members of the site are uploading new images (both of well-known and not so well-known artworks) so there's always something to hold your attention.

This is my Pictify page. Most of the artwork on it can also be found on my Flickr page but I dare say that unless I loose interest, I'll be adding lots more images to the Pictify site in the next few days. If you would care to see what images I've posted then please feel free to visit the site and if you would be so kind as to 'like' any of my images then you would make me a very happy bunny. Cheers!

'21 Steps' exhibition ( Liverpool)

Tomorrow morning I'm getting up bright and early and heading off to Liverpool. It's probably been a good twenty years since I last visited this lively city so when David Crawley, the director of Up And Coming Arts, asked me if I'd like to exhibit in his new exhibition I jumped at the chance. The show is called '21 Steps' and one of it's main sponsors is Liverpool Football Club.
Unfortunately I have to head back to London the same day so I won't be able to enjoy the musicians, bands and DJs that have signed up for Friday's opening party but if you are in the area and want to see what's going on then feel free to check out the Up And Coming Arts blog for all the details.

My contribution to the exhibition (which takes place over two venues) will be these three works – a painting, a pencil drawing and a print.

The painting is called 'The Ambassadors' and takes its figurative element from a photograph that appeared in many of the British tabloids a few years back. It shows a fight between some English and Turkish 'football fans'.
Like many of the paintings that I made at the time that I painted this one, it is painted on a shallow box structure that I constructed and the lines sheer off over the edge. The white line of the drawing is actually the primed surface showing through, so when you view the piece in the flesh, so to speak, your eye fluctuates slightly between the painted surface and the line drawing below. This can give the impression (from a certain distance) that the line of the drawing vibrates slightly.

I'm quite pleased with the pencil drawing but unfortunately the picture here doesn't do it justice – something that can be put down to my limited technical skills in the photographic department. The sketch is of a selection of found objects that I had lying around in my old studio but which I decided to draw as if they had mutated slightly and then morphed into one another. I think that it must have been one of those slow days, sculpturally, when I didn't have any big projects on the go and just decided to mess about a bit.

And lastly but hopefully not least, there's my Spidey Pods screen prints which will be on sale at the exhibition for £167 each. However, if you can't make it to Liverpool for the show but would like to purchase a print direct for me then please feel to drop me a line at waynechisnall@yahoo.co.uk .

Synthetic Life

As anyone who knows me will testify, I could never be accused of being a science geek but I do admit to a fascination with the more awe inspiring and fantastical theories and developments in contemporary science – especially in physics and biology (none of which I would ever claim to understand in any great depth – just deep enough to generate as sense of wonder). So I was delighted when Alec Bartos, on behalf of the Purdue University in Indiana USA, asked if they could use an image of my And When I’m a Man sculpture to advertise today's talk 'Synthetic Life: A New Industrial Revolution?' The talk is being given by Dr Gregory Kaebnick, editor of the Hastings Center Report and Bioethics Forum.

Although unable to make it to the lecture myself (what with it being in the US and me being here in little old London) I'm led to believe that the theme is synthetic biology and the idea that there might be a new industrial revolution: combining non-living parts to make a living thing, or a combination of living and non-living things - with Dr Kaebnick talking about whether or not this is even possible and what the implications might be for the ways we view humanity and the non-living world.
As I said, I'm a sucker for that kinda thing so I hope that it all goes well and that someone thought to film it and stick it up on the web.

Poster design by Alec Bartos.

Orifice Tower

Admittedly my latest sculpture isn't completely finished (there is just one small finishing touch to add but I'm waiting on the arrival of some resin hardener before I can do that) and this isn't the greatest quality photo in the world but I thought that I'd let you see how it's coming along – especially since I first started work on it quite some time ago. To be perfectly honest I enjoyed constructing this piece so much that I was more than happy to squander days just working on the tinniest of details - most of which no-one but myself will probably even notice. I think sculpting, and probably art in general, is as much about the process as it is the end result.

Although it might look like it's just been thrown together all the individual box sections and framework have been carefully constructed in such a way that the pieces interlock, creating a deceptively sturdy structure – not that I'm encouraging anyone to try and climb it. After the recent destruction of my City sculpture on it's way back from last year's show, The Event 2011, I don't fancy having to undertake more repair work than I already have to.

Discounting the glue, all the materials used in the construction of this piece (mostly wood but some copper piping and small metal fixings) are recycled – even down to the screws. This isn't purely for environmental reasons. It's mainly because I love the patina and 'resonance' of old materials. A lot of the wood comes from the backs of old picture frames or early to mid-20th Century packing cases from the Victoria and Albert Museum, here in London.

With this quick sketch you can see, in the drawing on the left, my initial idea for the Orifice Tower. I drew it whilst waiting for a talk to commence at the Jerwood Space in Bankside. I can't remember now what the talk was about but I remember that at the time I was working on some small sculptures that were basically wooden boxes with carved apertures or orifices in them. By this stage I'd become aware of the fact that much of my work was getting smaller and smaller so I decided to remedy this by creating elevated versions of my new Orifice Box sculptures – which also tied in with my love of tower structures.

In the (almost) finished piece you can see that the top section is basically another of my orifice boxes, with the front panel having been carved from a solid block of wood. One of the problems of exhibiting awkward sized sculptures (this piece is 2 metres tall) is getting them to and from venues so I designed this one so that it bolts together in four sections – making it easier to transport/package and making the bolts a feature of the work.

Stone Totem Tower

In an increasingly materialistic world I'm not sure whether my love of found objects and appreciation of the beauty of rubbish (I'm actually mentioned in an on-line dictionary under detritus – nice!) is a good or bad thing. On the one hand most of the materials that I work with don't cost me anything but on the other I'm a compulsive hoarded so tend to fill my live and work spaces to capacity.

Most hoarders justify their activities with phrases like 'but I'll definitely use it' or 'as soon as I throw it away you just know that I'll need it the next day'. And it's true – I do use a lot of the stuff I collect but some individual items have been known to sit around for decades before they graduate to the 'status' of art material. One such item is a pebble which I've just used in a mini sculpture and belated birthday present for fellow artist Remi Rough.

I like the idea of taking everyday bits of rubbish or found objects, removing them from their original environments and displaying them in a way that elevates them (in this piece, literally) to something akin to that of an artefact. This is more evident in my earlier sculpture, The City, which with its multiple glass fronted boxes looks more like a mobile Cabinets of Curiosity.

But getting back to the pebble - I was trying to remember where I originally picked it up and how long I've had it for. Although all I could recall was that it's been sitting on my book shelf for as long as I can remember and has travelled with me as I moved home for at least the last twelve moves. Then I came across this, one of my earliest prints made some time in the early 90's and realised that it was the same pebble.

Official Domus Launch

Last week saw the official launch (the earlier one was more of a late Christmas party) of the new Domus showroom at 50 Great Sutton Street in Clerkenwell, London.

In this i-phone snap taken by photographer, Rosie Mayell (ever vigilant for that potentially embarrassing photo op), you can see myself and fellow artist, Julian Wild, taking full advantage of a Domus spot light as we left the party. Julian and I both currently have sculptural work on display at Domus.

Planetoid 210

For a few years now I've been toying with the idea of using soil in some of my sculptures. This is my first foray into that particular area - I had to resist the urge to say 'field'. I'm not sure how I feel about this new piece (maybe it'll work as part of a larger group of similar sculptures) but that's okay because it was my first attempt at working with soil and I just wanted to see what would happen. 

 

I'm actually pleased with the physical results, as the soil mixture has set hard and doesn't show any signs of flaking. As you can see from the work in progress shot below, I built a plywood armature first. Then I covered it in a soil, wood chip and glue mixture.

'Planetoid 210' is a realisation of one of a series of sketches that I've been working on for some time. These sketches all involve architectural structures or towers sitting atop planetoids or spherical bodies that are obviously too small to realistically support them. The original drawing was inspired by something that happened to me whilst I was in Goa, India. I was swimming in the sea and noticed an interesting seed pod floating towards me. And as I picked it up to investigate further a small colony of tiny crabs decided that they must have hit dry land and proceeded to disembark onto my hand. I don't think that I'll ever forget those curious little seafarers and I often wonder how far and long they must have been travelling in that manner.

New Prints Coming Soon

In the next few weeks I'll be bringing out a limited edition box set of nine screen prints in collaboration with the very talented and hard working street artist (I'm still not sure if he likes being referred to as a street artist but what the hell - it's a tag that he keeps getting stuck with), Mister Remi Rough. The plan is that each box will contain four, nine by nine inch, signed and numbered screen prints designed by myself, four designed by Remi and a ninth one by the both of us. We have also talked about the possibility of producing a very limited edition version (of five boxes) where each box contains an additional four original works - maybe paintings or drawings.

In the meantime here's some info on three screen print designs that I still have available for purchase.

These hand-pulled, screen prints are in a limited edition of 50 - a much smaller edition than my Spidey Pods prints and each one is signed, titled, dated and editioned. I have cropped the prints down from the 70 x 50 cm paper, on which they were printed, to 60 x 45 cm as this size works best with the image. However, I have keep a couple back, un-cropped, just in case anyone would like to frame them in a larger frame with a wide mount. I know that Ikea do a nice 70 x 50 cm plain black or white wood frame, with a mount, for about £20 but I’ve not tried a print in one of these frames yet so can’t comment on how they look.

If you would like to get your hands on one of the black and white Swirly Skull prints at my special, commission-free price (usually 30-50% less than in shops and galleries) feel free to get in touch. I'm selling them for £50 each. So if you fancy buying one just drop me a line at waynechisnall@yahoo.co.uk.

However, for those of you who love skulls but also like a little bit of colour - here’s my 2 colour, ‘Swirly Skulls on Pink’ screen prints. They come in a strictly limited edition of 50 and each print is signed, titled, editioned and dated. The paper dimensions are 70 x 50 cm (larger than the new, single colour, ‘Swirly Skulls’ prints which are 60 x 45 cm). And as with the black and white Swirly Skull prints, these are also available for a super low, commission-free price (£60 each if bought directly from my good self). If you would like one just drop me an email at waynechisnall@yahoo.co.uk .

But if you fancy something with even more colour then how about one of my Spidey Pods prints? The most famous person, so far, to own one of these prints is the actor Andrew Garfield, who will be playing Peter Parker/Spiderman in the new Spiderman movie. Now if that’s not a good endorsement I don’t know what is.

The prints are all hand pulled, 3 colour, screen prints on acid-free, archival paper. The paper size is 58.6 cm x 54.2 cm (image 38.7 x 39.4 cm). Every print is signed and numbered (being from a maximum edition of 300). And if you would like to get your hands on one, my ‘commission-free’ price is £100 (around 33-50%off the usual gallery and shop price), just get in touch at waynechisnall@yahoo.co.uk.

To find out about the inspiration behind the print check out the original Spidey Pods sketch further down the blog.

Nail Heart

It's been a few weeks now since I last posted anything on my blog (partly due to excesses of the festive season and partly due to with me having to deal with an unusually large accumulation of boringly non-arty grown-up things – oh, if only I could just spend the rest of my life in a big, purely creative bubble) so I thought it about time that put up something new.

I've recently been tinkering with a few new sculptures - this being the smallest, which I made as a present for the photographer Rosie Mayell (who kindly photographed it for me). I'll post some pics of the others at a later date. As you can see, the piece is a wooden heart and much like my Nail Box sculpture, it's pierced with rusty nails and the odd screw here and there. Both pieces are heavily influenced by the minkisi carvings of the Congo.

Being a big fan of the immediacy of power tools, I carved the body of the Nail Heart on a band-saw which greatly sped up the carving process. The band-saw proved surprisingly versatile as a carving tool, if not a little scary – luckily I managed to finish the job with the same amount of fingers with which I started.

Before I added all the nails I let a few friends handle the lightly sanded and waxed wooden heart as it had a very tactile quality. And more than one person put this down to the fact that part of it looked and felt like a bottom. What can I say - maybe something subconscious filtered through during the production stage.

Show Comes Down Early

If any of you planned to catch the current Urban Curations exhibition at the Triple X Tattoo studio in Hackney, London I'm afraid to say that the show has already come down. It had to be cut short as Triple X Tattoo are now re-locating to a new studio in Leytonstone, East London.

I popped along this evening to collect my toy tower sculpture, Magnet. As I just live round the corner from the show, at the bottom of the now artistically fashionable Vyner Street and as my sculpture is mounted on wheels I decided to take a gamble and push my work home. It took a while but I as it got home in one piece I now feel reassured by the robustness of its construction. Although having to carry it up three flights of stairs did make me question the logic of simply not taking it back to my studio.

Unfortunately I didn't get to have a proper look at the show before it came down. I missed the opening night as I was still in Miami for Art Basel and since I've been back in the country I've busy trying to sort out a few future projects before the Christmas holidays. One of them is a nine piece screen print box-set in collaboration with the fabulous Mister Remi Rough – but more about that in the New Year.

Domus Launch Party

Today saw the launch of the new Domus showroom at 50 Great Sutton Street in Clerkenwell, London. Working closely with Sam Frith and David Kong I co-curated the art exhibition side of the venue's launch. Domus has gone for an industrial and relaxed look but clearly haven't tried to fill every nook and cranny of their new space with their products, so the artwork that is on display doesn't look boxed in. Although not an art gallery, Domus Clerkenwell has a planned programme of integrated art exhibitions and the artwork currently on show is by Julian Wild, Gary Martin and myself. One of Julian's 'System' sculptures (a sphere made from copper pipes) is situated above and to the right of the fire place in the outside court yard, whilst Gary's 'Sink and Swim' sculptures that look like inflated arm bands can be found downstairs, aptly placed upon Domus' corner section of a swimming pool.

As Domus' main clients are architects, my 'And When I'm a Man' sculpture seemed the most fitting piece to show since it closely mirrors the preiser figures (some of which I noticed were used to decorate this year's Domus Christmas tree) that populate many an architectural model. And to coincide with the launch my sculpture also got a bit of a make-over. Over the years the piece had suffered a couple of knocks whilst in storage so now felt like the right time to sand it down, strengthen the joints, re-fill them and then give it a shiny new re-spray.

One of the many nice touches at today's launch was the group of waiters and waitresses that caught everyone off guard when they unexpectedly burst into song. They all had amazing operatic voices and the acoustics of the space seemed pretty darn good too.