MARK JENKINS INTERVIEW

 

 

 

Introducing ‘Tape Mould Man’, Mark Jenkins - a man who would rather not be remembered, but has left us numerous artistic reasons to do exactly that.  What started out as a plastic tape ball fixation in the classroom, lead to him creating a life sized plastic mould of a Honda Civic (with a thousand dollars worth of cellotape). Jenkins has since gone on to create an incredible tape sculpture empire of epic proportions, or what I like to refer to as: ‘Tape Mould Mania’.

He specialises in street installations using as much 3M tape as he can muster. He covers objects and people in layers of his obscure medium to create a copy in its most basic physical form. These shapes and figures are what make up Jenkins’ army of plastic clones; manufactured fragments of an alternate civilisation of which he places sporadically within everyday society. Motionless and silent human bodies clothed and wigged without any distinct, finer facial features, ghostly imprints and lifeless forms all in a state of surreal composure in unpredictable situations.

Jenkins is able to make a production line of human figures modeled on his own body, he literally covers himself in tape and cuts the mould off himself with a sharp razor. When he is not cloning his own body, he occupies himself  with the art of cultivating copies of babies (not real ones…) and other toy models which are designed to generate playful anecdotes to break up the normality within the general public space.

Taking the shape of clear and translucent manikins, Jenkins’ figurative forms are layer upon sticky layer of tape, cultivating a sincere ‘out of body’ experience. Jenkins makes the ordinary appear strange… He is the master of creating a genuinely unnerving, yet often humorous confrontation with these lifeless bodies.

Try to imagine 3/4 of a man’s body coming out of a grey utility box, a prostitute panda in platform heels or a small infant playing in a broken fire hydrant, Jenkins has proven some seriously strange conceptual moments. He has exhibited his works in a gallery context in the most bizarre ways, and his environmentally conscious urban-evolution-art has been compared to the works of Andy Goldsworthy. Jenkins has also worked on a campaign in association with Greenpeace to promote the displacement of polar bears. He created a series where he added polar bear heads and ragged clothing to human figures to convey a sense of homelessness along with the awareness of global warming and the plight of the polar bear.

His physical compositions are playful but also unsettling and come from an experimental self examination into the human figure and different ways to manufacture and fabricate a situation where these glassy husks can ruminate. Akin to the dead, decaying shells of a cicada clinging delicately to a power pole or partly gripping onto the bark of a tree, Jenkins crafts his own haunting silhouettes and displays these in the most publicly eccentric ways.

Jenkins’ work truly sets the stage, placing his characters frozen in motion for the outer world to respond to, ignore or envelop. His army of tape figures are designed to command a presence, or sit idly camouflaged on any sidewalk or public space they are strategically planted within –  prompting questions to his audience in regards to a lack of empathy, visual stereotypes and our disconnection with the man-made environments we’re supposed to consider home.

xmarkjenkinsx.com

 

Words: Emma Forster

 

 

 

 

 

Just messing around with tape while living in Rio…I was interested in art installation and tape worked out to be a medium to explore, more of  a perfect coincidence really. It wasn’t a decision to clothe them, just an idea. You make a manikin and clothes seem like a good idea right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s more a social experiment and I suppose there is some hope for the results, but the work being ignored can at times be as interesting. Initially, documenting the work seemed great in a scientific sense but the images are also poetic, and make for a good book for your coffee table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a simple process: Wrap an object in plastic film (like you buy at a grocery store), Tape over it (with tape) 3-5 layers.  Cut it off with scissors or a razor and then tape it back together. For human casting the demanding stage is for the model to endure being wrapped up like this, especially the head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which of your installations has effected you or stuck with you the most? Why?

I think I like the installation where the traffic circle was converted into a merry-go-round. That when you drive around the circle the merry-go-round has the illusion of spinning because the horses face the opposite direction your are driving. It’s quite genius really…but genius ideas are generally 99% luck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each has a different feel, more so now with the gallery works taking their own course…works that would never be on the streets. Nature I separate from the street because it’s no longer about human relationships to humans, but only to nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Storker Project began in 2005. I didn’t start clothing the works until 2006. It didn’t make sense to clothe the babies because the clothing of the works is the attempt to make them appear real and this is done by casting real people. The babies are cast from toy dolls, not real babies. But the Storker Project was the first campaign, the babies became a sort of Tag, like Invader’s tile mosaics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you would like to exhibit or install an art piece anywhere in the world right now, where would it be and what would it consist of?

Me, here, now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What kinds of people influence and inspire you?

Camus, my parents, blue collar workers…people who can navigate the wilderness without maps or a compass.

 

 

 

 

Doing interviews.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The idea for  this project was for it not to branded as a Greenpeace intervention. They do this horrible thing where they put a Greenpeace tag on everything they do “I love Greenpeace” or something like this.  So for this one, it worked to generate mystery which equals media interest, and then discovering who it was which creates a second wave of media interest. It really worked. But I see their back to using this Greenpeace branding again. It’s too bad.

 

A man in whale suit?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make a spaceship and travel to Mars to make fake martians so any robot expeditions who came would be confused.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you have in mind for your art practice in the future? What are your long-term creative goals?

I’m not sure just yet. It’s been a sort of spontaneous path not very well thought out at all. After all, I studied Geology not art. But so this is a good question to get me thinking about these sort of things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How would you like to be remembered?