Artists Statement
My first two years at the Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD) were a shock and a delight to me. Art wasn't necessarily what I had thought it was. Even so, I did well in my classes and was as happy as I had ever been in my life. For my third year studies I was accepted to ACAD's Mobility Exchange Program and studied in Valencia, Spain. The Universidad de Valencia was more traditional than ACAD and while there I immersed myself in the European tradition of building clay figures and heads.
One of my instructors at ACAD, Katie Ohe, says that until you have sculpted 100 heads you will not understand the head. I took up her challenge. I have finished 95 life-size heads of my "100 Heads" project. I hope to complete the rest within the next year.
Although I worked from live models in Spain, this series is entirely from my imagination, they seem to be the people that I knew while growing up in Banff. They look like people from the nineteen fifties and have a sort of old fashioned look about them. Each one has taken on a life of its own
"The Bathers", a large group of small, nude clay figures began as figure studies where I was looking at body language and attitude as it related to the figures reality. After I had done a few I realized that they were beginning to talk to each other and some of the conversations looked very interesting. They have developed into a wonderful show of humanity and bring a lot of smiles of recognition to those who take a close look at them.
Each day as I begin work I wait to see who is going to show up in the clay. I begin with no preconceived idea about the outcome. I'm always looking for a certain turn of the head or the movement in a crossed leg. It's the body language that makes each piece an individual.
Bio Summary
One of the lucky people to have been born in Banff, Christine Wignall has since lived and traveled all over the world making art in many diverse places. She was curator and main exhibitor at the Treetops Artwalk in Invermere,B.C. for many summers and attended CollaboratioNZ in New Zealand. In 2000, she began a BFA program at the Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD) and for third year studied in Spain. While there she immersed herself in portrait and figurative sculpture and this has become the focus of her present work. In 2008 she attended the Banff Center's New Works Residency. Christine was awarded her Bachelor of Fine Arts with Distinction in 2005.
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