Cicatrix

At first glance, this artwork could be anything. Here are some examples. What was your first thought?

Toothpicks! Ever looked so closely at toothpicks? We hadn’t until we saw this work at an art fair. It was love at first sight, this belongs in the LAM museum!

Artist Chris Soal once saw a picture of some toothpicks. A very ordinary photo. Chris didn’t think much of it and threw the picture away. After a while he kept thinking of the photo. He regretted throwing it out, but also throwing so many toothpicks away. There is also value in everyday objects. You can make beautiful things with them.

Trees are being cut down for toothpick production. People use them once and throw them away. Chris wants to battle this waste. Therefore he uses single use objects in his artwork. He also makes works out of bottle caps.

There are plenty of artists that work with everyday objects. Like the selfportrait out of sugar cubes by Tom Friedman. In our collection you also find ‘paintings ’out of eggshells (Harmen Brethouwer) or strips of chewing gum (Francois Morellet). sculptures made of popcorn Merijn Bolink made mini-sculptures out of popcorn and Bertjan Pot created a mask out of straws.

Can you think of a material you normally throw away, which might also be interesting for creating something beautiful?

Chris wasn’t only interested in creating something extraordinary from something ordinary. He was also interested in transforming the shape of the object. He managed to turn a small, sharp object into something big and soft. It almost resembles fur!

Chris created his own technique for placing the toothpicks. At first he covers a piece of the mold in polyurethan glue in which he places a bundle of toothpicks. The glue doesn’t set immediately which gives him the chance to manipulate the material. This way he doesn’t have to create the work one toothpick at a time. On his Instagram page you can see how it’s done.

There is evidence that suggests Neanderthals and Homo Erectus were already picking their teeth 1,8 million years ago.

Does your dentist also always tell you to use toothpicks more often?

Toothpicks come in many materials: bronze, wood, bone, silver, plastic, metal and bamboo. Even heavily decorated toothpicks with gemstones have been found from the middle ages.

Chris used two kind of toothpicks for this work. The darker ones are made from bamboo and the lighter ones are made of birchwood. The two tones give the work more contrast.

Every year a lot of toothpicks are used. Almost 8 million toothpicks can be made from a regular tree! About 45000 trees are cut down every year for toothpick production, so you can do the math on how many toothpicks are produced yearly.