* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Christopher grew up in Florida doing construction work, then got an engineering degree from the University of South Florida and went to work for Motorola Inc. in robotics. A job with British Aerospace designing flight simulators in Tampa, Fla., followed, but Fennell said he got bored with using existing components to design things. He wanted to create from scratch. So he went back to school and earned a MFA degree from the University of Georgia. One of his professors wanted him to tear down an old barn, which inspired Fennell to build his first colossal sculpture. ‘I saw the barn falling down, and then the idea came to build a wave,’ Fennell said. He built the barn ‘wave’ in 2000 at UGA, then followed it by fusing 150 bicycles together to create a ‘tornado’ in 2001. Using discarded objects to create sculpture has become his theme.”
Source: Clair Osborn, Austin American Statesman, “Turning Two Pest into Art”, June 20, 2005
