Wayne Chisnall, with his work And When I’m a Man
Over the past few years the multi-talented Wayne Chisnall has enjoyed success for his sculptures and illustrations alike; from being awarded a bursary by the Royal British Society of Sculptors, to having his part Spiderman- (and part orange segment-, part Invasion of the Body Snatches-, and part Simon Bisley-) inspired print bought by none other than Mr Andrew Garfield (the new Peter Parker/Spiderman).
It looks like this success is set to continue well into 2011, with several of his pieces currently on display at Scream Gallery as part of their States of Reverie group show, and with an invite to represent Natasha Akhmerova’s Barbarian Art Gallery at this year’s Frieze Art Fair.
We catch up with the artist to talk about his work, influences and future plans…
As your model kit When I Am A Man suggests, many young boys want to be soldiers when they grow up – what was your childhood ambition?
Apart from a few very brief periods when I quite fancied being either a bin man, a monk, a steam roller driver or a kamikaze pilot (I was very young when I wanted to be the later and probably didn’t really understand the limited career path of being a human bomb, or the fact that I needed to be Japanese and born a few decades earlier) I always wanted to do something involving art.
As a child I would obsessively draw, paint and build stuff, so when I was old enough to realise that there were jobs out there that allowed you to carry on doing these things into adulthood I pretty much wanted to do all of them. I wanted to be everything from an architect to an illustrator to an animator to a comic book artist. But I was also a massive horror fan as a child and would fantasize about working in the film industry and making monsters for movies – although, growing up in semi-rural Shropshire, this seemed a world away and just a pipe dream.
You seem to have spent the majority of your artistic career in London, particularly East London, what is it you like about the area?
This is my twelfth year in London and I’m totally in love with the place – especially the East End. I can’t imagine ever leaving. It’s just great being surrounded by so many creative people. I know that the place isn’t as edgy as it used to be and that it’s becoming too fashionable (which probably means it’s no-longer fashionable) for many artists to be able to afford to live here now but there is still so much going on art-wise.
What influences your art most – your surroundings, other artists or other medias altogether (films, books etc.)?
My father was a painter, a tattooist and a martial arts instructor so I guess this is where I originally got my creative side from. But I’ve always been a very visual person and this was fed by my love of comics, film and animation. Found materials play a big part in much of my sculptural work but the biggest artistic influence probably comes from the work of animators like the Brothers Quay and Jan Švankmajer. Whilst growing up I was drawn to the beauty of their dark and dream-like short films. My piece, The City, definitely owes a massive debt of thanks to the Brothers Quay.
Wayne Chisnall, The City
But nowadays a lot of the work I produce is influenced by earlier pieces that I have created. It is almost like an accelerated form of evolution. Before I make a sculpture I usually do a lot of working drawings to help clarify how the piece will eventually turn out and because the drawing process itself often throws up a few unexpected or interesting features. The only problem is that I end up with more ideas for pieces of work than I have time to make them in.
The wheeled tower is a recurring motif of yours, one such example of a work that has evolved over the years – you have constructed wheeled sculptures made of human hair, books and toys to name just a few – what’s next?
I’m currently working on a series of wheeled, orifice box sculptures which are kinda the bastard offspring of my Orifice sculpture and the small box pieces that I see as being the children of my tower sculpture, The City. I really need to get some more external influences don’t I?
Anyway – I’ve made two of these pieces so far but now I’ve started making a small box sculpture that is very much like a miniature, exploded cube version of my Nail Box work. And this piece is designed to sit inside the larger of the new orifice pieces. However, unlike the tower and box pieces, this small cube piece is on stilts, not wheels, and has given rise to ideas for a whole new series of much taller cube sculptures.
And as if I didn’t have enough to do I’ve been working on some sketches for some more architectural pieces that I would love to make. The early drawings had them looking like a cross between haunted birdhouses and my Cardboard Brain sculpture that was basically a mass of interwoven periscopes. Although I made a couple of new sketches on the train this morning and the last one has had the idea mutate slightly. So to answer your question – I haven’t a clue what’s next – maybe one, all or none of these ideas. I just wish that there was more of me to be working on them.
Aside from exhibiting in traditional gallery spaces, your work also appears in films (Scratch) and online. What do you think is the best medium for presenting your art?
Any medium that gets the images out there to a wider audience is great but you can’t beat seeing artwork in the flesh (so to speak) and that usually means going to a gallery. Viewing work on-line and in books and magazines is fantastic because with a good quality photograph the work can look great and if it strikes a chord with the viewer they will always remember it – but especially with sculpture you need to be able to walk around it and see it from as many angles as possible. The thing I love about sculpture is that it’s 3D and exists in the same world that we do so we can interact with it and investigate its facets.
I read an interesting anecdote on your website saying that the first time Magnet was exhibited; it was temporarily hijacked by a group of young boys. Would you prefer art to be cornered off to the public to avoid such incidents or do you like this element of interactivity?
In an ideal world I would love there to be a more interactive element between my work and the public because the vast majority of people are respective of art and the amount of time and passion that goes into creating it. And some sculptures just need to be touched to fully appreciate them. But I do admit that I can get quite precious about my work, especially the more fragile stuff. And because of the amount of times that I’ve had work damaged whilst in exhibitions (usually unintentionally) I tend to err on the side of caution these days and no-longer exhibit in certain venues.
But maybe I should make some new, robust work that people can kick around and interact with quite aggressively. Or perhaps I could create an installation which the public is then invited to destroy – with the destruction itself being the piece. That would be fun.
Wayne Chisnall, Pharos Cyclops
Finally, are there any spaces in London that you would really like the chance to exhibit at and what would you show there?
It would be great to show at some of the big name venues like the Tate Mod or the Haywood etc just because of the calibre of work that has been shown there before and because of the number of people that would get to see the work – but there is something much more low key that I would like to do around London. At the moment there are one or two organisations that are promoting the use of vacant shop windows as exhibition spaces for artwork and I have two human-sized figurative pieces I made for a show a couple of years ago, that I would like to exhibit in this manner. They are called Pharos Cyclops I and II, and look a bit like Victorian robots – made out of wood and brass. I think that they would look good in the a darkened shop window because they each have a bright light that projects through a single lens in their wooden box heads and if they were positioned so that they faced each other, perhaps with outstretched arms (and their typewriter key fingers), their lights would illuminate each other quite theatrically.
Wayne Chistnall is currently showing at Scream Gallery as part of States of Reverie. Later on in the year he will be part-curating a group show with fellow RBS sculptor, Alice Cunningham, and will be showing alongside LG White and Remi Rough in Belgium.
He has also been chosen to represent VZ Gallery at Liste 16 Art Fair in Basel, and Barbarian Art Gallery at Frieze Art Fair.
To see more of Wayne Chisnall’s work take a look at his Blog Spot and Satan Loves You.
