Mark jenkins - family room

Mark Jenkins’ installation at VOLTA NY will transform Booth A1 into an unconventionally furnished family room. “I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation with resin and fiberglass,” says the artist of this new series, which includes five and a half life-size sculptures and a range of smaller pieces, “finding more original ways to make hand casts and improving structural solidity through new bracing techniques.” For the first time, Jenkins will present his works within a site-specific environment purposefully created to provide greater contextual authority and definition to his aesthetic and thematic considerations. “An empty space can feel sterile,” he observes, “as if a giant eraser has removed all context. The works become more like pinned butterflies. I have taken a different approach with (the presentation of) Family Room. This time it’s about creating a place for the sculptures to live in, so, in addition to clothes, I’ve been thrift store shopping for plants, drapes, rugs and chairs.” Both individual works and the installation as a whole will propose non-traditional commentaries on the institutions of family and home.
Mark Jenkins is an internationally acclaimed American artist and one of the most unique mixed media sculptors working today. His enigmatic brand of hyper realistic conceptualism is playful, innovative and thought-provoking, making him a very important figure in the history of contemporary sculpture and installation art. By placing his works in institutional, urban and environmental settings, he brings cities, landscapes and interiors to life in a new way, transforming the ordinary into the unexpected. Jenkins’ process involves dry-casting everything from fire hydrants and toy ducks to baby dolls and people, often himself or his assistants, with box sealing tape, the latter often dressed to appear scarily life-like. When placed outside or slipped indoors, announced or otherwise, these sculptures have the ability to both camouflage into their surroundings and elicit spectacular amounts of attention from viewers. Jenkins has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions in galleries, museums, festivals, art fairs and other cultural institutions throughout the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Belgrade, Vienna, Washington D.C., London, Barcelona, Malmo, Moscow, Tokyo and Seoul. Whether indoors or out, his work engages its viewers and provokes a complex examination of self and surroundings.