It can be a roller-coaster sculpting some of the figures, both emotionally and technically… Sometimes it means I’m surrounded by uncomfortable images.”
While Jinks’ bent toward science and psychology make his art firmly contemporary, he’s working in a high art tradition of figurative sculpture that can’t be contained. He offers new light on themes that have resonated before the original pieta. There’s the crucifixion-like piece “The Hanging Man,” the resting contrapposto of “Unsettled Dogs” and the similar “Doghead”—the subtle quality of emotion in every face and a fascination with anatomy everywhere.
“I like the momentum the Renaissance works have. They have a currency that we’re hardwired to respond to,” Jinks said. “The work of that period was often based in religion and was quite powerful. The work I do borrows a lot from Renaissance, but bases it in science and the contemporary world.”
In doing so, Jinks manages to combine a passionate attention to detail, an appreciation for the effective forms and themes of art history and the stormy psychology of our post-existential age.
“The Hanging Man” may best hit the high points of this combination. Crucified without the commanding presence of outstretched arms and a quick death, life slips from the Hanging Man slowly, meekly. Again there’s the buzz-cut everyman motif. We know this guy. Sympathy kicks in. Sadly, he’s resigned to his fate. He still has strength. His fingers press into the rear wall, not willing to push all the way off, not willing to give up his weird martyrdom.
In this way, “The Hanging Man” is the modern martyr. The compulsion to believe we are living and dying for something is stripped away. What’s left is another everyman deteriorating, pinned to a wall by his own stupid will. While any take on Jinks’ work is obviously subjective, it’s impossible to look at the work and not interpret. The familiarity is too much. And he admitted that the process is “an emotional journey”: “It can be a roller-coaster sculpting some of the figures, both emotionally and technically,” he said, explaining his process. “I use a lot of reference material: photos, life models, life casts of various poses and body parts. Sometimes it means I’m surrounded by uncomfortable images.”
Alone in his studio with a disturbing piece like “The Hanging Man,” or the alien vulnerability of a massive fetus, or the untitled mouthless aberration of a man’s face, Jinks gets to the crux of the tenderness and violence of the human animal.
But he holds his intentions close to his chest. Rather than intentional, Jinks says the work is instinctual, that the connection between he and the viewer is something wordless. It’s open to the distances of experience and time.
“After the work is made, I can’t control how people feel, as individual perceptions on life and art can vary so much. I accept this.”*
This article originally appeared in Hi-Fructose Issue 27, which is sold out. Get our latest issue by subscribing to Hi-Fructose here.
