Technical body
Sam Jinks learned his processes for making sculpture with latex and silicone while working in the film industry. Produced with clay casts and poured silicone, the representations of the body he makes reflect an unsettling naturalism. Yet his compositions also take us beyond considerations of technique by depicting subjects in a way that evokes a sense of intimacy and vulnerability.
With these works, Jinks explores the changes that body and spirit undergo over time, as well as the fragility of our mortal shell. An elderly woman gently cradling a baby, watching over new life; a younger woman curled into a yogic posture of rest; and an older mother figure comforting a middle-aged son.
The deposition is particularly loaded with references. Historical sources include Raphael’s Deposition and the Roman marble reproduction of Dying Gaul. In this modern-day iteration of the biblical story of the Deposition of Christ, Jinks focuses on the essence of the scene while inverting preconceived notions of relationship structures. It is not clear which figure is transitioning between life and death. This work is also laden with personal associations for the artist, who made casts of his grandmother’s hands to capture the intimacy of the gesture and, in the process, reveal the beauty of a hand ‘generated by a lifetime of work and activity’.
