Oodles of Doodles: October 2013

Saturday, 26 October 2013

Orifice Box Sketch (with Teeth)

As some of you may know, I've been working on a series of wooden box sculptures that feature carved orifices. This sketch, from my pocket sketchbook, shows an idea that I've had for a possible future orifice box sculpture - one that has teeth.

Monday, 14 October 2013

Mini Skull Scribble

Ever since I was a small child I've been drawing skulls and skeletons, and I've still not tired of it. Considering have varied human faces are I shouldn't really be surprised at how much one human skull can vary in appearance from another – but it still amazes me. If I see someone with a really interesting face I often wonder what their skull looks like underneath all the skin and muscle.

I made this little drawing in my pocket-sketchbook whilst sitting on a train. At the time I was in a drawing mood but didn't really have any strong ideas that I wanted to put down on paper, so I fell back on old faithful, and started scribbling away until a skull shape started to appear. Very relaxing!

It also features as one of my Inktober drawings on my Twitter page.

Saturday, 12 October 2013

Reptilian Automatic Drawing

It's sometimes odd what comes out when you decide to draw but don't really have any idea of what you want to draw. The hand moves, marks are made on the page, and the brain quickly interprets what it thinks it sees developing and goes with it.

Friday, 11 October 2013

New Orifice Box Ideas

I've just realised that I've not posted anything on this blog since June - shame on me! I must try harder (something that always seemed to appear in the school reports, I seem to remember) in future.

Here's two quick drawings from my pocket sketchbook. They're ideas for a couple new Orifice Box sculptures that I plan to make at some point in the near future.

This first one will be a variation on my Horned God Orifice Box, but with real horns, not twigs. I found a bag of polished horns in a charity shop and am looking forward to using them in a few sculptures.

And this tall version of one of my Orifice Box sculptures came about just because I found a set of casters on long poles, that were being thrown out at the V&A Museum (where I work), and I thought that proportionally, a long-legged Orifice Box would just look plain daft. So I'll have to make it.

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.