Oodles of Doodles: Rob Pruitt's Flea Market

Tuesday, 21 April 2015

Rob Pruitt's Flea Market – Venice Biennale 2015

To say that I've been looking forward to the opening of this year's Venice Biennale (and the party/private view week that precedes it) is a bit of an understatement, but now I have even more reason to be excited about it – even if it does mean that I won't be running around and checking out as quite many events as much as I'd like.

Coinciding with the opening of this year's Biennale, the A plus A Gallery will be hosting the Rob Pruitt's Flea Market, Venice. And I will be taking part. In fact, I've pretty much been spending the last two weeks, working all through the night on new pieces for the event. I've been creating wooden wall plaque paintings and drawings, mostly based upon my sketchbook work – all of which will be for sale at the RPFM.

Sticking with the Italian theme, I'm also having some tote bags, featuring my DaVinciPuss design (my take on Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man drawing), printed up especially for the event. They should be arriving from the screen printers any day now, so I'll post an image of one of them as soon as I get my mitts on them.

The first time that I became aware of the American artist, Rob Pruitt, and his internationally-travelling flea market project was in 2009 when he did a Christmas Flea Market at the Tate Modern in London. It was loads of fun and featured stalls by well known artists such as Tracey Emin and YBA, Gavin Turk, as well as those by lesser known artists. I bought a few pieces of artwork, including a couple of sweet, David Shrigleyesque drawings on blocks of wood (yes, that's where I stole the idea. Of drawing on bits of wood – not the drawings themselves. What do you take me for) by Jimp.

Rob Pruitt's Flea Market, Venice
'A plus A Gallery', San Marco 3073
5th - 8th May 2015 (open 12-8pm – free entry)

E press@aplusa.it
T 00 39 041 277 04 66
www.aplusa.it

The project is organized by the students of the “22nd Course in Curatorial Practices and Contemporary Arts” at The School for Curatorial Studies Venice, and curated by Tommaso Speretta.

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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.