Chris Wallace

Design
Visual Arts

I make soldered compositions. I use reclaimed copper electrical wire for small works and 3.15mm galvanised steel wire for larger works. In this work I regularly represent the human figure. I usually start with photographic images which are rendered as line drawings using graphite and digital means. My aim is to condense an idea or story into a single arresting image or composition. I am interested in how the figure, isolated from its context, can suggest other imaginative possibilities. My primary aim is to represent some of the truths of ordinary human action. I am also interested in how the body can become a marker of social status, how you can become classified simply by your bearing or manner and how impressions can be ‘given off’ by the body.

I also draw using coloured pencil, pen and ink. I additionally work with clay, make moulds in plaster and do casts in cement. Some drawings employ a method where the central motif is scratched out of layers of cross-hatched, coloured pencil using a scalpel. Some drawings build up a ground created from grids of ink lines.

I teach at Glasgow School of Art in the Product Design Engineering department. I have also been involved in formal research. My research looked at the part played by participatory action in changing the conditions in which aesthetic experience arises. I looked at the work of Carsten Höller, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Christopher Wool, Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark. These artworks were examined from the standpoint of reason, the body and social convention through the respective adoption of analytical, phenomenological and institutional/sociological perspectives.