Robert Jinkins

Growing up on a farm that has been in my family since the 1840’s, I gained an admiration and reverence for the land that so many of my family members have worked. Like ghosts or spirits that walk the place, monuments exist to people long dead. A barn raised by my ancestors falls in a windstorm; a winterkilled field of grass frosted with a light snow cracks like eggshells under my rubber barn boots; a rabbit dies and rots away under a piece of tin to be unearthed. My work is a eulogy, in a traditional sense, to the inevitable passage of time, exploration of place, and an investigation of personal intergenerational narratives. My pieces are labor intensive and take months to create—using an Apelles-inspired palette of natural earth tones, I use fine-hatching in graphite or delicate washes of acrylic, glazes of inks, traditional acrylics and hand-mixed paints utilizing potters’ pigments to create meticulous works as an biography of the land.

Robert Jinkins is a holds a bachelors in art from the University of Wisconsin Platteville and a Masters in Fine art from Iowa State University. He is also an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grant recipient.

* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 14^th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.