CINDY CHINN
Cindy Chinn works at the intersection of monumental ambition and radical fragility. Carving directly into graphite pencil lead, a material so unstable that a single breath can end weeks of work, she constructs an entire political world at micro scale. Locomotives that built empires. Herds of bison carrying the full weight of American myth. Sovereign portraits balanced on the tip of something you throw away. The pencil, the most overlooked instrument of modern administration, becomes in Chinn's hands the site where power, labor, and desire are compressed to their smallest possible form and made impossible to ignore. What distinguishes Chinn's practice from the long tradition of miniature art is not technical virtuosity alone, though that is extraordinary. It is the precision of her argument. Every subject she chooses belongs to a coherent reading of what the office does to the people inside it, and what they dream about when no one is watching.
A Chinese locomotive carved onto a pencil branded Great Wall. A Swiss train at the scale of the instrument used to sign the contracts. A Gulf sovereign's portrait balanced on the tip of something disposable. Two fists clutching green bills. A hand holding a frosted donut like a religious offering. Together these works form a miniature geopolitics and a miniature psychology of labor, staged on the cheapest tool on any desk in the world.
The pencil is not a neutral object in Chinn's practice. It is the instrument through which empires are administered, invoices drafted, and small rewards promised to people who keep showing up. By carving into it rather than writing with it, she renders it useless as a tool and transforms it into something the system never intended: a monument. Each piece demands weeks or years under a surgical microscope. Each could be destroyed before it is finished. That tension is inseparable from the meaning.
Post-American Fine Arts presents Chinn's work for the first time in Europe at Basel Social Club 2026. The proposition is simple and irrefutable. The cheapest tool on the desk contains the entire world.
The Great Wall Zephyr 2026
Cindy Chinn
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1962, San Francisco Bay Area, California. Lives and works in Chester, Nebraska.
Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Cindy Chinn built her early career across animation, graphic design, slot machine design, and art direction, spending many years as Art Director for some of the largest gaming manufacturers in Las Vegas. She served as lead animator on Disney's The Lion King video game and developed light and sound shows for what was, at the time, the largest video screen in the world. In 2006 she relocated from Las Vegas to Chester, Nebraska, purchasing and transforming a 33,000-square-foot former schoolhouse built in 1907 into her permanent studio complex. She has worked as a full-time independent artist since, operating across metal sculpture, murals, wood carving, glass, and pencil lead micro-carving. She was first represented internationally by Post-American Fine Arts in 2025.
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2025 — Select Artwork, Joslyn Castle, Omaha, Nebraska
2016 — One Woman Show, Minden Opera House Art Gallery, Minden, Nebraska
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2026 — The Office, Basel Social Club, Post-American Fine Arts, Basel, Switzerland
2026 — Mountain Plains Contemporary Art Biennial, selected participant
2025 — Exhi-BIKE-tion, Joslyn Castle, Omaha, Nebraska
2025 — Biennial Show, Gallery 1516, Nebraska
2024 — Tales of Poe, Joslyn Castle and Gardens, Omaha, Nebraska
2024 — Black and White, Meadowlark Gallery, Nebraska
2024 — July Invitational, Gallery 9, Nebraska
2024 — Tadweer Art Show, Souq Waqif Art Center, Doha, Qatar
2022 — Out of the Box 3, BG Gallery, Santa Monica, California
2021 — Things Called Art, Hilliard Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri
2019/20 — Small Works, Hilliard Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri
2019 — Silver Anniversary Alumni Show, Gallery 9, Nebraska
2019 — Scrap Metal Art Show, Souq Waqif Art Center, Doha, Qatar
2019 — The Grove Gallery, Nebraska
2018 — On Point: Sculptures on the Tips of Lead Pencils, Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures, Tucson, Arizona
2016 — Miniature Show, Art House LA, Los Angeles, California
2015/16 — National Miniature Show, Prairie Winds Gallery, Grand Island, Nebraska
2013 — Group Exhibition, Nebraska Governor's Mansion, Lincoln, Nebraska
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2025 — Finalist, The Art of Animals
2025, International Juried Art Exhibition
2024 — Grand Prize Winner, Metal My Way International Contest (Peacock)
2024 — Overall Runner-up, WINGS 2024 International Juried Art Exhibition (Raven)
2024 — All-Nebraska Artist, Nebraska State Fair (7th award)
2019 — Selected to design Nebraska stripe, Her Flag
2020, national public art project
2014 — All-Nebraska Artist, Best Fine Craft, Nebraska State Fair
2013 — All-Nebraska Artist, Best Fine Art, Nebraska State Fair
2013 — All-Nebraska Artist, Best 3D Art, Nebraska State Fair
2013 — Only artist in the history of the Nebraska State Fair to receive Best of Show in all three categories simultaneously
2013 — Top Nebraska Artist, Lincoln Art Fair
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2019 — Metal sculpture series, Parc Animalier de Sainte-Croix, France
2014 — Mural, community movie theatre, Nebraska
2013 — 17 x 50-foot mural, Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters, Norfolk, Virginia
2013 — Mural, Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, Las Vegas, Nevada
2007 — Murals and 25-foot circular ceiling mural, private commission, Charlotte, North Carolina
2004 — Five large-scale murals and 3D environmental installation, Summerlin Hospital, Las Vegas, Nevada
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Hiebert, Helen, ed. Creative Extremes. Verlag, October 2017.
The Fabricator Magazine, Vol. 55, No. 1, January 2025.
Woodcarving Illustrated, Winter/Spring 2016.
Dollhouse Miniatures Magazine, March/April 2017.
Nebraska Life Magazine, January/February 2017.
Home Review Magazine, July 2017.
Sparks Magazine, Fall 2017.
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"On Point: Sculptures on the Tips of Lead Pencils." Exhibition catalogue, Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures, Tucson, 2018.
"A Miniature Landscape of Elephants Carved from the Tip of a Pencil.
" This Is Colossal, July 2016. "Incredibly Detailed Pencil Carvings by Artist Cindy Chinn." Booooooom, July 2016.
"Cindy Chinn Carves Miniature Trains Out of Carpenter Pencils." Twisted Sifter, February 2016.
"Not Your Typical Artist." Good Day Sacramento, CBS Local, 2020.
"Old School Cool: Artist Cindy Chinn." Nebraska Stories, NET/PBS, 2021.
"Nebraska Local Stars in Disney Short Film." KHGI Nebraska TV, 2020.
Nebraska Public Media News, NET, 2021.
Friday Live, NET/PBS Radio, March 2021.
Disney Art Workshop documentary series, 2019.
Over 2 million views on Instagram.
"First Scrap Art Exhibition Opens at Souq Waqif."
The Peninsula Qatar, October 2019.
Bored Panda, 2015.
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