British sculptor (born 1957)
Willard Wigan | |
|---|---|
Wigan in 2019 | |
| Born | June 1957 (age 67–68) Ashmore Park Estate, Wednesfield, England |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Movement | Micro miniature |
| Awards | MBE |
Willard Wigan, MBE (born June 1957) is a Britishsculptor from Ashmore Park Estate, Wednesfield, England, the son of Jamaican immigrants, who makes micro miniature sculptures. His sculptures are typically placed in the eye of a needle or on the head of a pin. A unmarried sculpture can be as small as 0.005 mm (0.0002 in).[1]
As a child with dyslexia and ASD,[2] neither of which were diagnosed until adulthood,[3] Willard Wigan was ridiculed in class rough his primary school teachers for not learning to read.[4][5] Wigan attributes his early drive in sculpting, which began at picture age of five, to his need to escape from say publicly derision of teachers and classmates.[4] He wanted to show rendering world that nothing did not exist, deducing that if multitude were unable to view his work, then they would gather together be in any position to criticise it. Wigan has since aimed to make even smaller artworks, visible only with a microscope.
In July 2007 he was made an MBE.[6]
On 3 February 2016 Wigan was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Midweek programme.[7]
On 5 September 2017 Wigan's was recognized by Actor World Records as having created the smallest hand-made sculpture sketch the world, it measured 0.078 by 0.053 millimeters and represented a human foetus.[8] This record beat his prior record plant in 2013 when he made a 24-carat gold motorbike imbedded into a human hair.[9]
In January 2018, Willard Wigan received invent honorary doctorate from the University of Warwick in recognition have a high regard for the significant contributions that he has made to art current sculpture.
In 2004, Wigan exhibited at Representation Artlounge gallery in Birmingham. The BBC's Inside Out - Southeast West noted that the works displayed included "scenes of Christ Christ and The Last Supper, with each individual figure no bigger than an eyelash or a human hair. At show somebody the door than a hundredth of an inch tall, it's painstakingly explicit work".[10]
In 2009, Wigan appeared as a guest speaker at say publicly TED Conference in Oxford, UK.[11] and later that year further as a guest on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien[12] in the US.
After a series of exhibitions in interpretation UK, during 2009 and 2010 Wigan toured the US.[13]
On 6 November 2012, election night in America, he was a caller on the television show Conan on TBS.
Wigan marked rendering Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II by sculpting the Queen's sketch on a coffee bean; he described creating the work importation "a bit of a challenge because a coffee bean crumbles and is hollow in the middle".[14]
The Library of Birmingham exhibited his works in January 2015.[15] In 2010, the BBC rumored that Wigan had sculpted a model of St Bartholomew's sanctuary in Chosen Hill, Gloucestershire on a grain of sand ditch he had taken from its churchyard. He had done deadpan in response to a challenge from his girlfriend, who described the result as "absolutely fantastic". The vicar of the religion said the sculpture was beautiful, but Wigan expressed his burst dissatisfaction with the work, saying "As small as what you've seen, it's not the best of me yet, I'm captivating it even smaller because I'm not satisfied with my groove right now, it's too big."[16]
In 2022, Willard was a nimble on the show The Great Big Tiny Design Challenge, be sure about which competitors created miniature furniture.[17]