MELBOURNE.- Internationally renowned for his painstakingly crafted lifelike figures, Sam Jinks’ sculptures are imbued with unguarded human emotion, fragility, and vulnerability, piercing the viewer with a moment of intense intimacy.

For his first Australian solo exhibition since 2012, and the first in his home city of Melbourne since 2009, Jinks is presenting Hope in the Wilderness at Sullivan+Strumpf, a new series of realist sculptural works reflecting on the mysteries of destiny and instability that govern our lives, in an era plagued by alarm and uncertainty.

A body of work beautiful and blistering in equal parts, it’s full of objects that are both haunted by decay, and rich with the possibility of renewal. At the centre of the darkened gallery space, a singular figure with golden wings shimmers, her ethereal reflection gleaming in a black pool of water below. A startlingly realistic depiction of an ancient goddess, underscoring our ancient and prevailing need for connection; a quiet presence casting a reassuring glow over the accompanying works.

Orbiting this central figure are Jinks’ labours of the past few years, spent confined both voluntarily, and otherwise, to his studio.Snails, flourishing on the nourishment found within a rabbit’s skull. A newborn baby, fresh out of the womb, clutched by an elderly deceased figure – its hands mottled with colour and creased with lines, paying testament to a lifetime of motion and experience.




Within each of the works, Jinks captures and expresses the frailty and duality of our existence, in which the cyclical nature of life and death are the only certainties.

Born in 1973, in Bendigo, Sam Jinks is one of Victoria’s most internationally in-demand artists, presenting solo shows in Athens, Galway, Abu Dhabi, Taiwan and Singapore in the two years leading up to the COVID pandemic.

Videos about Sam’s work have generated millions of YouTube views. This is a rare opportunity for Melbournians to get close and personal and enjoy one of his renowned immersive exhibition experiences in real life.

Sam Jinks: Hope in the Wilderness will be on view until Saturday 11 March 2023. Watch Jinks at work in this short film, Sam Jinks - Hyper Real, by Long Walk Films, youtube.com/watch?v=1UMTt-jIOWE&t=2s. Prepare to be inspired.

The work of Sam Jinks draws on our shared fascination with the human figure, a fascination that has long pervaded the history of Western sculpture. Constructed from silicone, resin and often using human hair, the viewer becomes suspended in an intense moment of intimacy with the work, a moment that cannot ordinarily be achieved amongst strangers. As we stare at the figures frozen in states of vulnerability – be it babyhood, old age or quiet contemplation – we glimpse our own vulnerabilities reflected back.

Jinks' work can be found in various public collections including the La Trobe University Collection, Melbourne, Victoria; Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Collection, Melbourne; McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, Victoria; Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria; the Koc Family Collection, Istanbul, Turkey; the Kiran Nader Museum of Art, Dehli, India and the Museo Escultura Figurativa Internacional Contemporaenea (MEFIC), Portugal. Jinks has exhibited in a number of national and international exhibitions and events, including Art Stage Jakarta (2016); ART021 Shanghai (2015); Art Basel Hong Kong (2015); True to Life, Landesmuseum, Hannover, Germany (2015); All (Is) Vanity, Seoul Museum, Korea (2015); 21st Century Hyperrealism - Breathing, Daejeon Museum of Art, Korea (2015); Personal Structures: Time, Space, Existence – a collateral event of the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); Art Stage Singapore (2013); Animal/Human, the University of Queensland Art Museum (2012); and the survey exhibition Sam Jinks: Body in Time, Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria (2012).