CHRIS THURMAN: How many artists on the head of a pin? Plenty in Germany
Miniature worlds can profoundly glance larger ones
Willard Wigan makes art that is small. Smaller than the miniature paintings of the Palas of Bengal. Smaller than the petite portraits hidden in illuminated manuscripts from late medieval and early modern Europe. Smaller than anything yet produced by the human hand.
With Wigan, we’re talking really small. Microscopic, to be precise. He works at such a tiny scale that the best place to display his creations is the eye of a needle or the head of a pin. When he is crafting a figure — sculpting a grain of sand, a fleck of gold, a strand of hair or a carpet fibre — he places himself in a trance-like state, scraping and cutting between heartbeats so that he doesn’t damage the work in progress...
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