Also known as The Fabulous Czainskis, artists Paul and Chris Czainski have had commissions all over the world, but it is Staithes on the North Yorkshire coast where they find most of their inspiration. Ruth Addicott catches up with them

THEY have worked for some of the world’s top interior designers and styled some of the most spectacular homes, but inside their own quirky cottage in the seaside village of Staithes, artists Paul and Chris Czainski have taken their creativity to a whole new level.

With five rooms piled higgledy-piggledy one on top of another and a wall dating back to the 15th Century, Tudor Rose Cottage is like a museum in its own right with curious exhibits, taxidermy and surreal sculptures on display throughout. There’s the stuffed grey squirrel with a Barbie on its back, covered in wisps of hair from Paul’s own head. There’s a swimming costume made from scraps of coloured plastic and twine picked up from the beach. Then there’s Partridgepussy, a whole other story…

Known as The Fabulous Czainskis – a name coined by the owner of Staithes Gallery, Alison Milnes – husband and wife Paul and Chris Czainski are two of the most talked about artists in the town and have opened their cottage to the public for the Staithes Festival of Arts and Heritage for the past three years. With everything from pickled mermaids to fossilised lambs kidneys and a seagull with plastic toddler's legs, many visitors assume it is a permanent museum all year around.

After graduating in Fine Art at Leeds College of Art and Goldsmiths College in London, Paul established himself as a leading trompe l’oeil artist, working with top interior designers as a muralist and specialist decorator. His trompe l’oeil paintings sell for £700 up to £2,000 and he painted a mural once worth £40,000. He was also commissioned to create eight trompe l’oeil works for the Staithes Illusion Trail, leading visitors around the narrow streets and cobbled alleyways.

The Czainskis’ work has led to exhibitions and commissions from clients worldwide from top hotelier Rodney Smith in New Orleans to Roman Abramovich, Ringo Starr and the Duke of Westminster. Paul has also worked extensively for socialite and interior designer Nicky Haslam, which saw him do a mural for TV host Anne Robinson and some Doric columns at Althorp for the late Earl Spencer (“a lovely man, his thank you letter is one of my treasured possessions,” says Paul).

One of his most memorable commissions was for Mick Jagger, who wanted to recreate an 18th Century mural at his home in the Loire Valley. “The decorators were having trouble with colour so I went over to give some advice and I had conjunctivitis,” recalls Paul. “I’d never had conjunctivitis in my life. My eyes were nearly shutting. When I got there, there was a power cut and Mick Jagger was there with Jerry Hall and their chef from Mustique cooked us tea. We had Beluga caviar and then spaghetti and meatballs.” He recalls Jagger as “very cultured, very skinny and very personable”.

Chris, who was born in Blackpool, trained as an English and Drama teacher, before becoming a professional artist in 2005. Her work includes assemblage, sculptures, print making and painting as well as decorative and trompe l’oeil commissions worldwide.

She turns to places such as the Yorkshire coast and River Thames for inspiration, collecting discarded bones, shells, pottery and glass fragments. Her work, such as the Barbies in their various guises and wall pieces such as Stitched Dad and Punch and Judy, That’s The Way To Do It, can also be seen in their cottage.

“Our home in Staithes is like an installation and is still ‘in the making’,” says Chris. “We created a Museum of Curiosity in our home for the Staithes Festival in 2013 as an installation. Between us we made more than 90 pieces, but also included some of the more ‘curious’ works we had made. We loved it so much we have kept most of it so now we live in our Museum of Curiosity. We find it very inspiring to live in such an environment and our guests don’t know what to look at next.”

The Staithes cottage may be small, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in imagination with coastal influences such as shells and fossils embedded in the walls. The loo – Chris’s favourite feature – is red and white striped like a beach hut or Punch and Judy tent and has a porthole. They also have a 1950s cocktail cabinet which lights up when opened and was left by the previous owner. Their other home near Halifax is just as fascinating in an old 19th Century Congregational Church with a clocktower and graveyard in the garden.

It is the beach at Staithes, however, which inspires them time and time again, particularly Chris, who has a vast collection of driftwood and odd bits of metal and plastic which she uses for sculpture, icons, and paintings. (They work on individual projects as well as performing and working together). “You can’t always find what you’re looking for, so it’s best to let the objects inspire you,” says Paul.

One of Paul’s biggest influences is taxidermy and he can often be found rooting through antique shops for odd remnants and recycling them into works of art. He’s had a fascination since he was young and visited the Walter Potter museum, the Victorian taxidermist, who created famous exhibits such as a schoolroom of kittens sitting at their desks.

When he was an art student, he decided to give it a go himself with a dead pigeon he found on a zebra crossing. “I skinned and mounted the bird in a flying pose, but I didn’t have any glass eyes so I gave it some white plaster ones which looked really creepy. But I got inspired, I’ve always liked that kind of creativity,” he says. He went on to do a thesis on taxidermy for his final dissertation.

His more recent creations, such as Golden Boy - a golden pheasant with a doll’s head on the end, also features the hair off Paul’s head.

“Chris cuts my hair and stores it - always has - because it’s really handy sculptural material. I don’t know many other artists doing that” he says. “These pieces of taxidermy on their own would probably end up in the bin.”

Partridgepussy – a partridge with a kitten’s head on the end – was on a horrible piece of white polystyrene before he recycled it into something more interesting. Another piece, Dead Flycatcher, is made from a bird that fell down their chimney. “I found it in the ash,” says Paul. “It must have been there some weeks so it had preserved itself.”

Do they ever look at each other and think, that is just a bit too odd?

“There is no such thing as ‘odd’,” observes Paul. “There’s only interesting. There are some great artists in Staithes, but they all seem to have a genre or paint boats or houses in a particular style. We’d get bored rigid if we had to do that so we kind of branch out. Ideas are easy, it’s getting it done that’s the problem. We make things we think people don’t necessarily want to buy. A lot of people tend to buy what they friends have bought and always have the same picture on the wall. Our stuff isn’t that saleable, but it is creative and different.”

While their grand-children – they’ve got 12 – appreciate their work, some people have been less enthusiastic. When one of Chris’s creations - a baby doll in a cage entitled Captured Angel featured in the window of a gallery in Todmorden, one member of the public went in and asked for it to be removed.

“That was fun,” chuckles Paul. “That was a proper response. Some people just want to see a pretty picture in a rectangular frame don’t they?”

For more info visit staithesgallery.co.uk or czainski.com and czainski.co.uk

  • Paul and Chris are both exhibiting at the Chelsea Flower Show on the Gladwell Patterson Gallery next weekend (May 16). Chris is showing "Alternative botanical paintings" and Paul a series of imaginative paintings with a Beatrix Potter theme.
  • The Fabulous Czainskis' House of Jars, an exhibition/installation, is at Staithes Festival on the weekend of September 12-13