There's no chance of a still life

Another big on-going project is for Cleveland's 1996 UK Year of Visual Arts where he's been commissioned to produce a whole package of five permanent public art works ranging from 12 large-scale banner-flags for Middlesbrough to an outdoor mosaic, painted cut-steel frieze and seating area plus a 60ft Formica gable end for the city centre Odeon cinema and portable neon lighting for various sites including swimming baths. Cleveland is being treated to one of his best ploys: a garden of roses designed to spell out SEX. ``It's a sculptural thing made out of real roses. It'll grow to 10ft tall. It's a maze to wander in, think about goings on in the bushes - and smell the flowers before entering the Middlesbrough Art Gallery,'' he explains.

Glasgow also celebrates the UK's 1996 Year of Visual Arts, (despite the fact that the city lost) and Wiszniewski has been invited to paint the entire top floor of the new Gallery of Modern Art in Exchange Square. ``It began as two rooms, but now it's going to be one big function room cum cafe/restaurant, with about six walls. I get to OK the colour of the carpet too. The architect is enthusiastic, so I'm sure I'll enjoy myself.'' Before he settled for painting, Wiszniewski spent three years training as an architect. It's all proved very useful.

Meanwhile he's just completed his Glasgow Royal Concert Hall mural (of a quartet of young musicians playing imaginary instruments), book illustrations for George Mackay Brown's new short story, The Sixth Station, to be published by Clarion in the next couple of weeks, and, practically overnight, produced a huge 10ft picture for the London launch of Glasgow City of Visual Arts 1996, ``A fun piece!''

And he's scooped the plum exhibition at next year's Edinburgh Festival with a solo show at the Talbot Rice (following Bellany and Campbell) which will then be toured by his Belgian dealer, Gallery F17, to Holland, Germany, Brussells, Vienna and Japan. ``We are very positive about Adrian's work. He's always ready to experiment,'' they tell me.

There are spin-offs to this hyper-activity. Wiszniewski banners will also feature in Central Station next year while the designs for the banners are being made into screenprints in collaboration with Glasgow Print Studio and North Shields Print Studio. The prints, together with preliminary Cleveland drawings, will form an exhibition for Middlesbrough and perhaps Glasgow's 1999 Architecture and Design Gallery in Princes Square.

``But nothing's definite until it's up on the walls. I always wait until the first cheque comes through; then you know they are serious!''

So does he have a team of helpers; a smooth running workshop; a bevy of assistants? ``You must be joking! I work at home. On my own. My studio used to be a byre. We have three kids aged from two to eight. Sometimes it's like a fairground. I have all these wonderful drawing pens and then I find they're bashed - the kids have used them for colouring in. The shelves I store my things on get higher and higher. Kids! But they're great really.''

Louis, Holly, and Max are in fact the apples of Wiszniewski's eye. He's a wonderful father - something that might surprise those who knew him in his younger, wilder days. He does more than his share of looking after them with equanimity, a fact his wife Diane takes in her stride.

Happily Wiszniewski is a fast mover and likes deadlines. The Citizens' portrait was finished at 4am in time for collection and framing at 10am. I watched its progress over eight weeks, interspersed with other commissions, starting with the day he began in a makeshift studio above the Glasgow Print Studio where each sitter came separately on consecutive days. He began with small, speedy studies from the life and then sketched in the poses on his 8ft canvas. It's changed a good deal since then - not so much an evolution as a fast about turn.

Originally Wiszniewski envisaged the three sitters in classical mode, Havergal, the intellectual heavyweight who has just won t

The commission is the brain-child of Duncan Thompson and James Holloway of the SNPG. ``James came to see the portrait a fortnight ago when it was landscape-ish and loved it. But I didn't like it so I painted it all out five minutes after he was out the door. I drew sections right across it, aligning the centre division with the cube Philip sits on. James will get a fright at the unveiling when he sees how it's changed. It was a delicate game to get it right but I wanted something colourful and strong.''

So how does he juggle all these balls in the air and remain so easy-going and laid back. Does he never get stressed? ``No. I quite enjoy it all. It's good fun.'' Of all the artists I know, Wiszniewski is the one most ready to contribute to Scotland's general artistic community. He's been on the exhibitions committee of Edinburgh's Fruitmarket and Glasgow Print Studio, making sure younger, conceptual artists get a foot in the door. His stylistic interests are broad. His latest idea, for artist designed wallpaper, (ultimately for sale as limited editions) has attracted funding from Glasgow's 1996 Fund.

His Good Samaritan painting for Liverpool exemplifies Wiszniewski's strengths, and his ability to make painting relevant to today. He's updated the entire scene, making the Good Samaritan into a young woman of the 1990s who aids a victim of a street stabbing, while yuppies exchange their business cards and a dapper youth, Italian jacket slung casually over the shoulder, looks the other way. The huge 11ft canvas contains six figures in a complex composition where the light from a house makes a central, critical, cross of golden light on black shadow, and a wall shaped like a bolt of lightning acts as a reference to tragedy which comes at us out of the blue and a support to the Christ-like stab victim with the gash in his side.

An allegory of The House Built Upon Rock will show a family at the seaside with a serpentine sand snake, sand-castles, buckets and spades. ``We took the kids to St Ives. That's where I got the idea.'' Liverpool Cathedral gets 6,000,000 visitors a year so both he and the clergy want the picture to be easily understood.

``I don't do things just for one reason. I'm using the parable as a premonition of Christ's crucifixion. The woman, dressed in blue like one of the three Marys, is giving the victim water in a chalice as though giving communion. The blood is shaped like a heart while the incriminating Swiss army knife (which has a white cross on it) points at the bystanders soundlessly accusing them of their indifference.

`'The business cards represent the mock friendships of today. The victim's jacket on the ground is orangey red, like the Robe - remember the film with Richard Burton? - that the Roman soldiers played dice for. The second girl bystander doesn't run to help but does hold on to her handbag. The Italian youth is going to walk on by - like the song. They say the sky went dark at the Crucifixion, a solar eclipse, so I've painted it black. There's a palm tree to locate the scene. The colours are bright, like stained glass, because it'll be hung 10ft off the ground. All the work went into balancing the colours. It's like the Rubic cube. Change one; you change them all.''

I left Wiszniewski to tackle juggling his next big job. But which one would it be? Characteristically he took the easy option. ``I think now I'll get the tea on,'' announced Scotland's Renaissance family man.

Artist Adrian Wiszniewski is like a whirlwind of activity as he breezes through major commissions. Clare Henry views recent works, including the Citizens' fiftieth anniversary portrait