Habonde (Entity Effigy Series)

I’ve always been fascinated with the strange and unusual forms that nature throws up. This is especially true when it comes to vines, roots and branches etc.; materials that I’ve collected for years and which I’ve often incorporated in my work. Similar to the way I created some of my earlier minimal intervention sculptures (basically, just found materials where I’ve done the bare minimum required to change them into something vaguely approaching art), I’ve started work on a new series of small semi/barely-figurative pieces that I’m calling my Entity Effigies. Rather than being actual sculptures I’m considering them more as contemplation pieces, as inspiration for potential further works (drawings and paintings).

‘Habonde’ (detail), from 'Entity' effigy series, 2025, artist - Wayne Chisnall

This one, I’ve named ‘Habonde’, after the Medieval European folklore figure Dame Habonde (derived from the earlier Roman goddess Abundantia), a beneficent fairy or benevolent spirit who brings good fortune to the homes she visits at night. The crown-like structure at the ‘head’ of the effigy, and it’s overall hedgerow aesthetic, brought to my mind the idea of a fairy queen, the obvious candidate being Queen Mab from Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’sDream’. Some believe that Shakespeare’s Mab was derivative of the folklore character of Dame Habonde and the reason I chose the name Habonde over Mab (‘Mab’ probably being a much cooler name for the piece) is that I preferred the Habonde stage in the evolution of this entity’s mythos. While the Roman Abundantia was a personification of the concept of abundance, she thrived more in her folkloric form in Roman Gaul and Medieval France as Dame Habonde or Domina Adundia (Latin for ‘Mistress Adundance’), where she was described as a ‘white-clad’ lady who, accompanied by other ‘night ladies’ or ‘dominae’, would enter people’s homes at night. Although seen as a figure of blessing and good fortune, the Christian Church (ever intolerant of earlier or native belief systems) took a dimmer view, associating such beliefs with witchcraft.

‘Habonde’ (detail), from 'Entity' effigy series, 2025, artist - Wayne Chisnall

But getting back to the actual physical effigy itself, the display mechanism that I came up for it is a stand made from a brass rod and a rock base. First I sanded the bottom of the rock to give it a flat even surface and then I drilled a hole into the top for the rod could slot into. I like how this worked with the effigy itself; the materials complimenting one another. I feel that the stand both grounds the piece whilst allowed it hover almost ethereally.

‘Habonde’, from 'Entity' effigy series, 2025, artist - Wayne Chisnall

Interestingly, I only noticed whilst sanding and polishing the bottom of the rock that it was mostly made up of fossils. Maybe this is why I picked up the rock in the first place, from wherever I originally found it (maybe one of the local old quarries or possibly from a trip to the beach). Until now, it had just been knocking around my workshop amongst all the boxes of interesting finds.