Sam Jinks developed a talent for drawing and constructing his ideas alongside his father, a Melbourne cabinetmaker. Jinks worked as an illustrator before turning to sculpture. He worked in film and television special effects before becoming a fabricator for artist Patricia Piccinini. For the last ten years he has sculpted independently, working in silicone, fiberglass, resin and hair – human, animal and synthetic. His work was shown at Art Stage Singapore, and in Personal Structures (2013), a collateral event of the 55th Venice Biennale. Jinks’s work is held in Australian and international public collections including Kiran Nader Museum of Art, Dehli, India and the Museo Escultura Figurativa Internacional Contemporaenea (MEFIC), Portugal, RMIT and McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park. When Jinks’s first solo exhibition Body in Time toured to regional venues in 2012, the people of Shepparton raised funds to purchase the sculpture Woman and Child for the Shepparton Art Museum. Jinks’s work has recently been displayed at the Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection in Frankfurt, Germany and Hanover, Germany. His Standing Pietà (2014) was shown at Art Basel, Hong Kong and Marc Straus in New York. In late 2015, Jinks’s work toured to the Daejeong Museum, South Korea.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2016
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
© Sam Jinks
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Sam Jinks on hyper realism and his motivations.
This display sets two impressive portraits from the collection into direct dialogue: Sam Jinks’ sculptural self portrait and Nick Mourtzakis’ painted portrait of David Chalmers, along with related maquette and sketches.Together they explore physical and psychological manifestations of the strata of self-hood.
