Christopher Madden

hand tools

  • The appeal of hand tools

    Pliers and wooden hemispheres

    Pliers, wood, acrylic. 15x8x2cm. August 2024

    A work featuring a pair of workman’s pliers.

    Workman’s tools and handyman’s tools are a frequent feature of my work, with my first sketches of them dating from my early twenties, about fifty years ago.

    I’ve always liked the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic qualities of hand tools. Pliers, such as the ones here, have legs that are suggestive of human legs and jaws that are suggestive of crocodile jaws or perhaps pterodactyl jaws. The business end of tin snips and garden pruners resemble the beaks of birds, and hammers have heads.

    Another appeal about hand tools is their robust usefulness. They tend to look strong and they make hard physical work that much easier.

    They are also nostalgic. In my youth my father had a garden shed that contained racks and racks of tools that were in constant use for repairing broken household items and for constructing basic items of furniture. Now such tools feel as though they may be on the brink of extinction as people no longer fix things and as what tools there still are tend to be power tools which lack the simple physicality of hand tools

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  • Anthropomorphic found object sculpture

    Contemporary sculpture anthropomorphic found object with humour

    Homo Habilis – Man the Toolmaker

    Steel pliers, ceramic head, magnet. 15x15x1cm August 2024

    An anthropomorphic sculpture composed of a pair of pliers to which a ceramic head has been attached.

    I made the head about thirty years ago in around 1994.

    I call the piece Homo Habilis after the extinct species of human that lived in Eastern and Southern Africa about two million years ago. Homo Habilis literally means Handy Man, which in my piece nicely links to the handyman’s tool, the pliers. Homo Habilis is also referred to as ‘Man the Toolmaker’, which links equally nicely with the piece.

     

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  • Worker’s tools in contemporary art

    contemporary art workman's tools

    Wall mounted sculpture from workman’s tool

    Pliers, wood, paper, acrylic. August 2024. 335x335x30mm

    A pair of workman’s pliers mounted on coloured paper with three painted hemispheres of wood attached.

    To me the pliers have a pleasing anthropomorphic appearance, with their handles resembling legs (here dressed in brightly coloured trousers or stockings).

    The three hemispheres disrupt the shape of the pliers, visually separating the jaws at the top of the tool from the base. This is reinforced by the fact that these particular pliers have brightly coloured plastic on the handles (the trousers) which are there to insulate the user of the pliers from any accidental contact with live electricity.

    The use of handyman’s or workman’s tools such as hammers, pliers and spanners is a recurring theme in my work.

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  • Art about oppression – contemporary political sculpture

    contemporary art about political oppression and dictatorship

    The Oppressor Empaled. A sculpture about oppression.

    Hammer, nails, wood. 18x34x26cm. May 2023.

    This sculpture is a work of political art, in the form of a metaphor for oppression and rebellion.
    The work shows a hammer empaled by nails.
    Part of the concept behind the sculpture is that the hammer is being impaled by the objects that it normally hits – the nails. The hammer is a symbol of oppression and dictatorship and the nails are symbols of the oppressed.
    But the sculpture poses a question – how did the nails manage to drive themselves into the hammer? Nails by their nature need a hammer, or a stand-in for a hammer, in order to be effective and to fulfil their purpose. Were the nails hammered into the hammer by another hammer? In that case the nails are not a metaphor for the oppressed rising up against their oppressor (the hammer) using their own power, but are more like the followers of another power (another hammer?) that may turn out to be as oppressive as the hammer that they’ve empaled.

    The leaders of liberation movements against repression often become oppressors or dictators in their turn.

    This sculpture is a development of an idea that I had in 2010 when it started life as a drawing of a hammer with three nails driven into it.
    Since then it developed into a 3D sculptural work composed of a hammer nailed directly onto a flat surface as though pinned down.
    The iteration here has the hammer suspended above a surface and with many more nails driven into it so that it’s starting to resemble a nail fetish figure.

    contemporary art about oppression - hammer sculpture
    political art - sculpture about oppression

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  • Anthropomorphic Assemblage from Tools

    contemporary sculpture from found objects

    Anthropomorphic Sculpture from Tools

    Steel pliers, magnet. 8x3x18cm February 2024

    A sculpture composed of a pair of large pliers and a pair of small pliers. I suppose it fits into the category of sculpture made with found objects or sculptures made of scrap. The pliers are held together by a magnet, although they do actually balance without it, if a bit precariously. The resulting figure resembles a person with arms held high and with horns. Maybe a demon. The figure actually reminds me of a bodybuilder: the stocky torso and muscular legs, not to mention the pose.

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  • Anthropomorphic assemblage

    Contemporary sculpture anthropomorphic found objects

    Anthropomorphic sculpture from found objects.

    Mole wrench and oil can cap. October 2023.

    A mole wrench and an oil can cap create an anthropomorphic sculpture suggesting an embracing couple.

    The sculpture came about when I was about to put teak oil on my kitchen worktop, which was something I’d been putting off for the previous five years. The cap of the tin of teak oil was rusted in place due to lack of use and I had to take it off using a mole wrench. Holding the resulting wrench and cap combination instantly I sensed the potential for it to be a work of art in some way, partly because the oil can’s cap resembled an eye when the light struck it. At first I thought that the assemblage perhaps resembled a fish, but after a bit of turning it round in my hands I saw human forms emerge.

    This is a good example of the way that people can interpret objects differently to the nature of the objects themselves. I believe that our brains interpret things based on a hierarchy of significance. The brain sees something and then scans down a list of likely possibilities for what the thing is, with highly significant things at the top of the list. At the very top of the list is ‘human being’. Very much lower down the list, if it’s on the list a all, is ‘mole wrench’. When you see a mole wrench in a tool box you automatically go straight to the ‘mole wrench’ item way down your brain’s list, because the context in which you see the wrench is strongly suggestive that it is indeed a mole wrench that you’re looking at. However, in the context-free setting of the photo above your brain has to work harder and has to consult its built-in list of possibilities, at the top of which is ‘human being’. The wrench possesses something of the shape of a human form, and thus the connection is made. The fact that the wrench is standing in a way that no mole wrench in the real world could do without support helps to amplify the effect.

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  • Hammers bound together

    contemporary sculpture - hammers

    Hammers bound together

    Hammers, shoe laces March 2022

    Three hammers bound together with shoe laces. The hammers are different sizes, creating a dynamic visual effect and implying a differential power status between the hammers.

    The fact that the hammers are bound together renders them useless as hammers, making them impotent. However, maybe they’re not bound together to reduce their power – maybe they are bound together to create unity. Maybe the price of unity is a reduction in individual power. But is the price of unit a reduction in group power?

    hammers in art
    Hammer sculpture
    Hammer wall sculpture
    The hammers exhibited in my solo show at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall, 2022.

    The work is a study of power, restraint and impotence. It’s also a nice composition. The inspiration came in my studio when I placed one hammer directly on top of another one (By chance or deliberately? I don’t know).

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  • Contemporary sculpture – pliers and plaster (and paint)

    Contemporary sculpture in the Arte Povera genre

    Pliers Piece I

    Pliers, plaster, acrylic paint. 12x1815cm. 2020

    A sculpture composed of a pair of splayed handyman’s pliers and a painted plastercast of the inside of a coffee filter cone.

    Pliers and other handyman’s tools such as hammers and spanners are recurrent features in some of my constructions.

    The work is probably influenced by the Arte Povera movement, and the plastercast of the inside of the coffee filter may owe something to artists such as Rachel Whiteread (although I don’t think that she’s known for adding colour to her casts).

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  • Political protest art – the Oppressor Impaled by the Oppressed

    Political contemporary art - hammer sculpture - oppression overthrown by the oppressed

    The Oppressor Impaled by the Oppressed. Hammer and nails sculpture.

    Hammer, nails. This version, May 2022. Original concept, 2010.

    This sculpture is partly a metaphor for oppression and rebellion.
    The work shows a hammer nailed to a surface by nails.
    Part of the concept behind the sculpture is that the hammer is being impaled by the objects that it normally hits.
    How did the nails manage to impale the hammer? Were the nails hammered into the hammer by another hammer? In that case the nails are not necessarily a metaphor for the oppressed rising up to overthrow their oppressor (the hammer) using their own power, but are more like the followers of another power (another hammer?) that may turn out to be as oppressive as the hammer that’s been overthrown.
    The use of handyman’s tools such as hammers, pliers and spanners is a recurring feature of my artwork.

    contemporary art exhibition, Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens
    The work in my solo show at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall, 2022

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  • Unstable construction assemblage

    Contemporary sculpture made of workman's tools

    Unstable construction made of G clamps

    G clamps.    40x40x40cm (variable).    2021.

    A sculpture or assemblage composed of G clamps.
    G clamps are usually used for holding work together temporarily, such as when components are being glued together. Here the G clamps are holding on to each other so that they are part of a structure themselves rather than an instrument for creating a structure. The angle of the piece gives the structure a feeling of instability. This could have allusions to the instability of the modern world that we have constructed through our use of industry and technology, where the very means by which we have constructed our world leads to its inherent precariousness, especially now that we are inflicting such serious damage on the environment.

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  • Nailed and clamped sculpture

    Contemporary sculpture with nails and G clamp

    Clamped and nailed

    G clamp, nails, wooden sphere.    20 x 20 x 15cm.    2022.

    This sculpture or assemblage is almost an accidental artwork.
    The nails in the sphere were put there to attach other objects to. The G clamp is there to hold the two halves of the sphere together (It’s composed of two hemispheres glued together.
    One of the skills needed in art is the ability to see the unexpected.

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  • Assemblage composed of G-clamps

    Contemporary art assemblage from construction tools

    Assemblage of G-clamps

    G-clamps and speed clamp. September 2021

    A sculpture constructed from G-clamps attached to a speed clamp.
    Normally clamps are used in order to hold other objects together (such as glued pieces of wood while the glue dries). Here the clamps are holding each other together. The assemblage can be interpreted as a metaphor for human society holding itseld together by using its own inherent qualities and strengths.

    An version of this concept shows the clamps at an angle – possibly a metaphor for the precariousness of the cohesion of human society.

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  • Hammers – photomontage for sculpture in the environment, Cornwall

    Contemporary sculpture in the landscape Cornwall - hammers

    Hammers: sculpture in the landscape

    Photomontage visualisation. Cornwall. June 2018

    A visualisation of a concept for a sculpture in the landscape.
    The landscape in the photograph is the Penwith peninsula in west Cornwall.
    The hammers are meant to project a sense of overbearing force, the fact that there are several of them possibly implying organised force (such as military force). Hammers, to me, have a certain anthropomorphic quality to them, suggesting a degree of human identity – a long thin body with a head at the top. The blank facelessness of the heads of the hammers in this image suggest a mindless power (I’ve done other works in which hammers have faces).

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  • Spanner Man

    Contemporary art sculpture featuring hand tools - spanner with a ceramic head

    Spanner Man. Hand tools in art

    Ceramic head and spanner. July 2015

    The ceramic head in this sculpture is held in the jaws of the spanner by a thin wooden rod that forms the head’s neck.
    It is uncertain whether the head is trapped in the jaws of the spanner or whether the head and the spanner form a single entity, with the spanner as the body (The shape of the spanner suggests a seated or crouching body).
    It could be interpreted that the head in the sculpture represents the thinking part of the person, while the spanner represents the physical body of the person, the thinking part thus being clamped (possibly against its will) to the physical part. This could have metaphysical connotations or connotations invoking the expression “born in the wrong body”.
    This tension of ambiguity of meaning is one of the things I like about the piece.
    Workshop tools and handyman tools such as spanners, hammers and pliers are a recurring feature of my small scale sculptural work.

    sculpture made from hand tools - spanner with head
    A close-up of the top of the spanner

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  • Hammer and nails sculpture – a study of oppression and rebellion

    Political contemporary art about oppression and rebellion using hammer and nails

    The Oppressor Impaled by the Oppressed. Hammer and nails sculpture

    Hammer, nails, plank. June 2015.

    A sculpture composed of a hammer nailed to a plank of wood.
    The hammer is being empaled by the objects that it normally hits.
    This can be interpreted as a metaphor for oppression and rebellion, and it’s also a study in irony.
    How did the nails come to be impaling the hammer? Were the nails hammered into place by another hammer? In this case the nails may not be the downtrodden oppressed rising up to overthrow their oppressor using their own power, but are possibly the followers of another power (another hammer?) that may turn out to be as oppressive as the hammer they’ve empaled.

    Other versions of this piece have the hammer on a horizontal surface, such as on the top of a plinth, while further iterations use different numbers of nails. The vertical version shown here is in some ways disturbing because the vertical configuration gives more of an impression of the hammer being violently empaled rather than simply nailed down to the spot. It is also disturbingly suggestive of a crucifixion in Christian iconography.

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