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UPDATE 16/01/10 - ***MODELS NEEDED FOR "GREAT WALL OF VAGINA" SCULPTURE*** Please see the photo of the piece and if you would like to be involved please get in touch. Also see my Facebook group for details:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30284930390

Jamie McCartney is a sculptor who shuns any closer definition. “I make things,” he says prosaically. This mock humility belies a strong, some would say eccentric, character. He is a strong contender for the title of the UK’s new enfant terrible.

Born in the middle of London’s swinging sixties, Jamie took his fine art degree in the USA before returning to England to develop his career. With a painter for a mother and an engineer for a father perhaps it was inevitable Jamie would combine both of those influences to become a sculptor. After setting up a metalworking forge in London creating incredibly dynamic steel animals, Jamie was seduced by the film industry. Working as a sculptor and prop maker on blockbusters like Blackhawk Down and Casino Royale, Jamie honed is skills and learnt to master many new techniques and materials. He now employs those methods in tandem with his fine art training to produce these extraordinary and unusual sculptures.

Jamie has many strands to his work, is always engaged in outré projects and is frequently in the media. Never shy of controversy, he constantly explores the boundaries of what is possible and what is acceptable. His latest series, Sexidermy and Objets d’Aft, involving such things as taxidermy, fur, human teeth and cast body parts are characteristically challenging. He believes in the power of objects and frequently uses emotionally loaded things in his sculptures, which in turn can lend them immense power. On the other hand he is also happy to indulge in pure whimsy.

Jamie’s most recent work, After, is a death mask taken by Jamie from his father who died in August. Cast in jet-black bitumen and set on a white pillow this cast is not in the traditional style. It is a more graphic and disturbing version and a strange amalgam of tomb sculpture, death mask and mummy, which explores Jamie’s relationship with his father, with death and with the living.

However Jamie is better known for his celebrations of life, winning an international sculpture prize in 2006 for The Spice of Life, an iconic wall sculpture featuring 84 casts of breasts and genitals. He was a runner up in 2007 with his surrealist work, The Impossibility of Passion. However, it is Jamie’s work in progress, The Great Wall of Vagina, which is set to propel him onto the world stage. Consisting of 360 casts of women’s genitals it is intended to combat the surge is cosmetic vaginal surgery, which Jamie describes as, “a misguided and brutal practice with no place in a civilised society”.

Being prepared to go to extremes is what this artist is all about. That total commitment to his work combined with highly developed skills and a strong socio-political leaning make Jamie a seriously interesting artist who is starting to get the attention he so richly deserves. Several TV stations have recently been filming him in action at his picturesque, seafront studio in Brighton, England. If you haven’t heard of Jamie McCartney yet, you soon will…



Jamie McCartney is an artist who is hard to define. “It’s my degree in Experimental Art,” he explains, “I’m still experimenting”. Jamie admits to being a sculptor but shuns any closer definition. “I make things,” he says prosaically. This mock humility belies a strong and, some would say eccentric, character with a definite je ne sais quoi. Jamie is a maverick, a polymath, an enfant terrible and what he makes is causing quite a stir in artistic circles.

Having established an open studio at the JAG Gallery in Brighton, Jamie is the man of the moment with Brighton’s celebrities and those in the know. his unusual work has proved popular with collectors and his success at a recent charity auction with Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin has really established him on the international stage.

Having gained respect for more conventional pieces, including public steel sculptures, he now treads a rather more controversial path. Jamie’s many years prop making and sculpting on feature films proved a rich source of inspiration. The techniques and materials he mastered on such films as Casno Royale gave Jamie a vast arsenal to play with and he began to bring those processes back into his artwork. “It really suits my experimental nature. If I can think of it, I can make it.” Jamie says wryly.

As an experimental sculptor with a strong conceptual edge, what he is now making is, of course, fairly outré. Never shy of controversy, Jamie explores the boundaries of what is possible and what is acceptable with his choice of both subject matter and materials. A strong surrealist vein runs through much of his work. "The Impossibility of Passion" is perhaps his magnum opus in this tradition. Continuing that thread, his latest series of works, Sexidermy and Objets d’Aft, involving such things as taxidermy, animal hides, objets trouvé, human teeth and sculpted body parts are characteristic of his fertile imagination and willingness to go one step beyond. This facility with non-traditional materials, their challenging juxtapositions and slick execution are key to Jamie’s unique style and his increasing notoriety.

Jamie won the 2006 Erotic Signature sculpture prize for his piece The Spice of Life, created from 84 casts of people’s breasts and genitals in various states of arousal. It now features in the must have coffee table book, The World’s Greatest Erotic Art of Today Vol I. He is also a winning artist in the 2007 competition and will feature in the World’s Greatest Erotic Art of Today Vol II, out in May 2008

Spring 2007 saw the opening of London’s Amora, which houses this and six of Jamie’s other sculptures on permanent display. He also won the Kyoto prize, at the UK’s first Art Car Parade, for Car-bon Miles, his absurd pedal-powered road car and has now shown with Britain’s greatest living artists. His stock is definitely rising…

Before his more unusual creations found their market, the mainstay of Jamie’s work were his lifecast sculptures using moulds taken directly from the body. These pieces still keep him much in demand and he now has a full time assistant to help cope. Limited edition sculptures are available in the gallery, or you can commission one of yourself. Anything from whole bodies, to torsos, portraits, hands and feet etc. can be cast as beautiful and unique works of art with a wonderful freshness and realism.

Jamie sells through the JAG and several London galleries. A commentator on the public art with his column Sculpture Vulture and recently a judge in the reality art show, Seeking Picasso, Jamie is also an art critic in his own right. With his moniker of Critical I, he ruthlessly applies the same scrutiny to his own works and is notorious for throwing away pieces, which displease him.

Actaeon

2007
Deer hide, glass, mahogony.
100cm x 120cm

Arma-dildo

2007
Taxidermied armadillo, polyurethane resi
35cm wide

The Impossibility of Passion

2007
Bronze resin, sandstone base
165cm high (life size)

Pussy Cat

2007
Taxidermied ferral domestic cat, polyest
45cm long

The Spice of Life

2006
Plaster polymer
2650cm X 1250cm

Lucky Strike

2007
Mousetraps, cigarettes, acrylic paint
35 X 45cm

Design A Vagina

2007-2008 ongoing
Plaster, Limited Edition of 20
80cm x 48cm x 6cm

Blow Fish

2007
Taxidermied puffer fish, paint, cushion
30cm x 30cm x 27cm