Alex Chinneck
Famed for melting, bending and unzipping buildings, and tying furniture in knots, the work of British artist Alex Chinneck is monumental in ambition and impact. His surreal sculptures and public artworks playfully disrupt the world around us, challenging our understanding of familiar objects and materials.
Chinneck’s studio is responsible for some of the most complex and celebrated public artworks of the last decade, including flagship projects for London Design Festival, Milan Design Week and Hermés, Hong Kong. Commissioned for and photographed in iconic sites around the world, his portfolio is evermore remarkable.
From the start of his career, the artist has pushed the limits of sculptural practise in order to expand our perception of what is physically possible. Sculpting with materials known for their strength, weight and rigidity, he transforms them into flexible, weightless and animated forms. The apparent ease of each transformation belies the painstaking craft, advanced engineering and precision fabrication processes behind much of the work.
Chinneck fell in love with making while completing a Fine Art (Painting) degree at Chelsea College of Art. His practise evolved through a collaboration with the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial College. Through this, he established a powerful aesthetic and way of working that have become his signature. As a sculptor, he considers himself self taught.
In 2013, Chinneck created a full-size, three-storey ‘sliding house’ on a residential street in Margate, made with bending bricks, windows and door. The self-facilitated project became an overnight sensation, attracting global media interest and coach parties of visitors to the previously quiet street.
Chinneck has since gained an international reputation as ‘Art’s Master Illusionist’ (The Guardian). He has completed twenty major public artworks to date, including multi-storey buildings that melt, ripple, hover and unzip, a 37-metre inverted electricity pylon, a 25-metre spiral staircase that springs apart in three directions, and a full-size loop-de-looping canal boat that floats on the water. Most recently, the artist was invited by the Office of the UK Prime Minister to install a twisted phone box outside of London’s 10 Downing Street, and commissioned to create a landmark sculpture for Canada’s national historic site, Parc Montmorency, Québec.
Using the fabric of daily life as his canvas, Chinneck weaves fantasy into everyday scenes.
Influenced by artists and architects alike, including Michael Heizer, Donald Judd, Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry, his distinctive practise occupies its own space between different disciplines and schools. The results generate widespread attention, not only for the impressive scale and elegance of their execution but for their surprising nature and subversive charm.
Many of Chinneck’s sculptures are infused with an anthropomorphic quality that lends them magnetism, warmth and whimsy. The artist’s humorous titles add further to the enjoyment and understanding of the work.
Chinneck’s sculptures can be found in private art collections and royal houses around the world. Previous commissioners include: Musée des Beaux-arts de Nancy, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, EXMURO, Times Art Museum (Chengdu and Beijing), British Airways First Class and Hermès.
Chinneck is a graduate of Chelsea College of Art and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Sculptors. His studio is based in Kent.
Bangers and Mash (2026)
American Black Walnut, Bakelite piano keys, 19th Century books
142 (W), 60 (D), 200 (H) cm
Unique
An upright piano whose body has seemingly been squashed by the weight of a pile of 19th century books. Placed on top of the piano, the antique books send waves and ripples through the familiar form of the instrument, affecting every detail of its design.
Produced in partnership with craftsman Jonathan Fernhead and made from American Black Walnut, Chinneck’s ‘squashed piano’ appears to be effortlessly animated, adopting the language of fluidity which is a recurring theme of the artist’s work. The straight lines and monochrome features of the piano case and keyboard are disrupted by the sculptural process, pushing the limits of its material form.
Chinneck’s ‘traditional’ piano offers a surreal disruption of a familiar domestic object. His irreverent title of ‘Bangers and Mash’ references its squashed form and contrasting colour palette while weaving a contemporary slang term for popular music into the title for a timeless sculpture. Synonymous with the artist’s work, Bangers and Mash celebrates unpretentious quality - providing something that is both conceptually accessible and materially astounding.
Blood sweat and tears, with a twist of lemon
Ash, bristles
130 (h) x 35 (w) x 8.5 (d) cm
Edition of 25
In 2018 Alex Chinneck released his first ‘domestic’ sculpture: a hand-carved broom whose handle appears to have been tied into a knot. Titled Blood, sweat and tears with a twist of lemon, the piece was selected from over 9,500 entries as the winner of the annual Liberty Open Call.
For the artist, the work marked the start of an ongoing exploration and celebration of the knot as ‘the perfect sculptural form’, constantly changing as you move around it and readable from all angles.
Chinneck’s ‘knotted' series has since grown to include a knotted architectural column installed in a historic museum in Germany (Birth, death and a mid-life crisis, 2018), a knotted grandfather clock (Growing up gets me down, 2018), a knotted pillar postbox which appeared overnight on streets in Sheffield, London and Margate (Alphabetti Spaghetti, 2019), a knotted fire extinguisher (Fire in the jelly 2020), and a knotted lamppost, recently installed in Parc Montmorency, Québec (First kiss at last light, 2024)