Rug Face

A few months back, I posted about the mold I made for the creation of a series of large wall-mounted face mask sculptures, shortly followed by a post about the first piece (not counting the existing red wall mask piece that I made, in order to cast the mold in the first place), Fetish Face, that I made from it. Well, I've just finished my second piece from the same mold. Whereas Fetish Face was constructed from human hair and resin, this new piece, Rug Face, is made from pieces of an old Persian or Oriental (I'm not quite sure which) rug.

'Rug Face', 2020, giant wall-mounted face sculpture by artist, Wayne Chisnall

The great thing about using the mold is that it allows me to experiment with a wide variety of materials and yet still produce pieces of a uniform shape, that are clearly recognisable as being of a series. For Rug Face I was interested to find out how the different sections of rug would work together so I had some sections butting up to each other and some overlapping, especially in areas where the rug had become more threadbare. I'm quite happy with the results although for the next rug one I'll probably try it with the sections just butting up together, so that the surface exists all on the same plane. However, the next piece that I make from the mold will probably be constructed from a different material altogether. I'm still looking forward to making a ceramic mosaic version of the giant face mask sculpture, which is the reason that I made the mold in the first place. I'm currently about to lay some new tiles down in my kitchen (after a back-breaking week of pulling up the old ones) so hopefully I'll pick up some skills from that, that I can transfer to the making of the mosaic mask.

'Fetish Face', 2019, hair & resin, 3 views of giant wall-mounted face sculpture by artist, Wayne Chisnall

When I initially set about constructing the mold I intended for the face to be simple and gender/race-neutral so I went for a very stylised form. Interestingly, it ended up looking not unlike a simplified version of a traditional African mask. In constructing the original positive, from which the mold was cast, I wanted to draw attention to the similarity in structure of the mouth and eye lids, so deliberately made them the same size and shape. I think that by making the first piece out of human hair I ended up with something that looks like a cross between Chewbacca and an African mask, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the use of a variety of diverse materials effects the appearance of future sculptures in the series.

Mould made for the creation of giant wall-mounted face sculptures by artist, Wayne Chisnall