Oodles of Doodles: January 2011

Sunday 23 January 2011

Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project (Page 20)

This is page 20 of my forty page contribution to the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project. I had planned to post a drawing a day but what with my new show, States of Reverie, at Scream in Mayfair and having to pack ready for another house move, I've been a bit busy.

It is a re-drawing of an old sketch I made that gently pokes fun at one of my sculptures, The City. But if I could find the time (in between all my other projects) I would still like to make it as a sculpture in its own right.

Sunday 16 January 2011

Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project (Page 19)

This is the ninteenth page of my forty page contribution to the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project.

The sketch is a re-drawing of an element of one of my working drawings from around the time that I was working on three seperate sculptures, The City, Fetish and Baby Kit, so it contains elements of all of them - the boxy tower structures from The City, the hairyness from Fetish and the dolls arms from Baby Kit. The original sketch has also recently been used (all be it in an altered state) as a cover for a music EP.
One of the interesting things about redrawing an originaly quick-fire sketch is that although you get to refine some of the lines and structure of the work, you also loose some of the vibrancy and edginess of the original.

Saturday 15 January 2011

Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project (Page 18)

This is page eighteen of my forty page contribution to the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project.

The drawing is a reproduction of one of my earlier sketches which was of an idea that I had for a metal box sculpture with exposed entrails.

Sunday 9 January 2011

Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project (Page 17)

This is page seventeen of my forty page contribution to the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project.

It’s a prototype sketch for my new series of Orifice Box sculptures, of which two have already been completed. Well, nearly completed – I’m still working on the internal piece for my Frankenstein’s Orifice Box, which will be a partially exploded, nail encrusted, wooden cube (not too dissimilar to my Nail Box piece) on stilts.

Friday 7 January 2011

Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project (Page 16)

This is page sixteen of my forty page contribution to the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project which will soon be touring at least nine states in the US.

It is a re-drawing of a recent doodle (at last - my Oodles of Doodles blog features a proper doodle) that I made whilst I was thinking of making a tower sculpture out of all the small pieces of interestingly shaped wood, left-over from working on other sculptures.

Thursday 6 January 2011

Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project (Page 15)

This is page fifteen of my forty page contribution to the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project which will soon be touring at least nine states in the US.

It is rough copy of one of the 6 postcards that I exhibited in the RCA Secret 2010 exhibition at the Royal College of Art, here in London.

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project (Page 14)

This is page fourteen of my forty page contribution to the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project.

The drawing is based upon elements of a few sculptural components that I was working on when I first started constructing my City sculpture. The vine structure made it into the final piece where as the carved orifice didn't (it ended up becoming, Arch, a small sculpture in it's own right).

Tuesday 4 January 2011

The Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project (Page 13)

This is the thirteenth page of my contribution to the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project.

Again, this is another idea for a sort of cross between my City and Fetish sculptures – a mobile tower of hair and wood.

Saturday 1 January 2011

The Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project (Page 12)

This is the twelfth page of my contribution to the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project.

It’s a re-drawing of an old sketch that I made when I was toying with the idea of creating a cross between my City and Fetish sculptures – a tower of hair and wood.

The Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project (Page 11)

This is the eleventh page of my contribution to the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project.

Like quite a few of the drawings for this project, this one is copied from a previous sketch that I made in an earlier sketchbook. The subject of the drawing is a thick vine that I saw growing up an architectural structure when I was in a park in Washington a few years ago.

Biog

Based in London since 1999, Chisnall now divides his time and art practice between London and his new, larger studio in Shropshire. Coming from an illustration, painting and print-making background he is now as well known for his sculptures and drawings.

In 2005 he was awarded a bursary and membership from the Royal British Society of Sculptors.

As well as his work appearing in UK and international exhibitions, magazines, on record covers, and on TV (including BBC 2's 'The Culture Show', Channel 4 News, London Live, and Channel 4's 'Four Rooms'), his sculptures have appeared in the feature film, 'Scratch', directed by Jakob Rørvik. In 2013 he was commissioned to produce a series of paintings for the horror film 'Bliaze of Gory'.

The artist's work is featured regularly in on-line articles and interviews, including two separate articles in The Huffington Post.

Chisnall has organised and run art/sculpture workshops for schools and businesses since 1998, including ones for ING Bank's London headquarters via the Royal British Society of Sculptors.

John Malkovich chose Chisnall's script, 'Doppelganger', as the winning entry in the 2008 Sony VAIO Scriptwriting competition. This script, along with Malkovich's was then turned into the short animated film, ‘Snow Angel’.

“ … I’m going to go with the “Doppelganger” script. It’s clever, inventive, and somehow both surprising and inevitable. Very neatly done all in all.” John Malkovich (4th Jan. 2008).

As well as working on his own projects the artist accepts commissions. His clients include Mary Fox Linton, Andy Martin Architects, Converse, Dawood and Tanner, Domus, Ctrl.Alt.Shift, private collectors, and the Ping Pong restaurant chain.

Artist's Statement

Much of my practice involves the reworking of found objects; objects that I feel have a certain ‘resonance’. By using materials already loaded with meaning and associations I am able to play with people’s expectations and create narratives that lurch between the humorous and the uncanny.

Memory, or its fallibility, is central to my work; as is evident in pieces that incorporate or recreate childhood artefacts. An important aspect of my life-size model kit sculpture, ‘And When I'm a Man, I’ll Think as a Man’, is its colour, which was chosen to match my memory of that of a childhood toy – realizing that the memory would have mutated; exaggerating its original luridness. In an age of fake news and phenomena such as the ‘Mandela Effect’ I’m eager to explore the creative possibilities of misremembering and of outright fabrication.

As well as the obvious sexual interpretation of the orifice element that's emerged in many of my recent works, my main interest in the device, lies in it being the portal between the internal and the external.

Other reoccurring motifs in my work are the box and tower; pertaining to themes of containment, the urge to possess, and mobility.

Although not a film maker myself, my work has been influenced by my early passion for film and animation. This is evident in my archaic-looking tower sculpture, ‘The City,’ which echoes the same fairy tale or dream-like quality that is characteristic of the short films of animators such as the Brothers Quay and Jan Švankmajer.

“Chisnall’s towering wooden piece is made up of tiny display cases and cabinets made from found materials like skulls, insects and fossils, a kind of modern cabinet of curiosities. Or a nightmarish vision inspired by Jorge Luis Borges. He explains that much like the inhabitants of a big city, each compartmentalised environment plays out its own narrative, seemingly oblivious to that of its neighbour”. Julia Kollewe (journalist – The Guardian & The Independent), 2009.

“Wayne Chisnall creates art that references such things as structure, time and Modernism as they pass through a very contemporary mindset that focuses on humor, transience, functionality and futility. There is also the presence of popular culture in his thinking, as he addresses the differences between reality and perception, and how that affects the needs, wants and even the formation of the human psyche.” D. Dominick Lambardi, 'Repurposing With a Passion', The Huffington Post, 14th July 2014.