Jenny Pollak sculptor

Feeling the pinch 2025

Pliers, plaster, timber

The perpetual desire of the unattainable 2025

plaster, timber

A loss of innocence 2025

painted timber, plaster

A precise instrument for measuring solitude 2025

antique metal compass, plaster, heeble block

Careening or flying 2025

antique iron, plaster, timber

Softly, softly 2025

Plaster, timber

A fine balance 2025

Plaster, timber

Softly, softly 2025

plaster, timber

A little love affair 2025

plaster, timber

Duet for one hand 2025

plaster, timber

Installation view of the exhibition Skin 2025 Clara Street Gallery, Sydney

sculpture and photography

Confrontation between the masked men over the colour of god's beard

2005 (dimensions variable) ceramic Manning Regional Gallery

Pareja caminando (Couple walking)

2000 plaster, heeble block

Asylum

2005 plaster, lead, upholstery tacks

Lest we forget

2008 ceramic and glass 30cm x 10cm Hawkesbury Regional Gallery

The First Library

2016 hand made ceramic teeth

The First Library (detail)

2016 hand made ceramic teeth

On the origin of species

2012 cut computer paper, printed and cut text, acrylic boxes Incinerator Space, Willoughby, Sydney

"There is a crack in everything..."

2008 silver goblets, mirror, clear line

One degree of Separation (detail)

ceramic

If we think of the evolutionary history of animals as a vast lineage which has undergone incremental changes, generation upon generation over billions of years, we can see that in the bigger picture each of our family trees have common roots — roots common with all of the other animal species. Wanting to find a metaphor for this common lineage and to share this understanding of our commonality with all life on earth, and (by implication) with corals, I created the work One Degree of Separation. Not only are we inextricably linked to corals by this inconceivably vast succession of individual lives lived and the ‘morphing’ of one species into another over vast expanses of time, but by our fortunes as well. The delicate biological balance that has been arrived at on the planet over several billion years has not been immune to external forces—it has been created by them. This work is a visual metaphor for the idea that the fortune of humans is inextricably connected to the health and well-being of other animal (and plant) species and that the bleaching and death of corals that can arise from even a one degree rise in sea temperature is a warning to humanity of our ultimate dependence on a stable and healthy planet and the absolute necessity to care for it.

One degree of Separation (detail)

ceramic

If we think of the evolutionary history of animals as a vast lineage which has undergone incremental changes, generation upon generation over billions of years, we can see that in the bigger picture each of our family trees have common roots — roots common with all of the other animal species. Wanting to find a metaphor for this common lineage and to share this understanding of our commonality with all life on earth, and (by implication) with corals, I created the work One Degree of Separation. Not only are we inextricably linked to corals by this inconceivably vast succession of individual lives lived and the ‘morphing’ of one species into another over vast expanses of time, but by our fortunes as well. The delicate biological balance that has been arrived at on the planet over several billion years has not been immune to external forces—it has been created by them. This work is a visual metaphor for the idea that the fortune of humans is inextricably connected to the health and well-being of other animal (and plant) species and that the bleaching and death of corals that can arise from even a one degree rise in sea temperature is a warning to humanity of our ultimate dependence on a stable and healthy planet and the absolute necessity to care for it.

One degree of separation

2013 120 cm x 120 cm x 85cm ceramic, timber (finalist in the Willoughby Art Prize)

If we think of the evolutionary history of animals as a vast lineage which has undergone incremental changes, generation upon generation over billions of years, we can see that in the bigger picture each of our family trees have common roots — roots common with all of the other animal species. Wanting to find a metaphor for this common lineage and to share this understanding of our commonality with all life on earth, and (by implication) with corals, I created the work One Degree of Separation. Not only are we inextricably linked to corals by this inconceivably vast succession of individual lives lived and the ‘morphing’ of one species into another over vast expanses of time, but by our fortunes as well. The delicate biological balance that has been arrived at on the planet over several billion years has not been immune to external forces—it has been created by them. This work is a visual metaphor for the idea that the fortune of humans is inextricably connected to the health and well-being of other animal (and plant) species and that the bleaching and death of corals that can arise from even a one degree rise in sea temperature is a warning to humanity of our ultimate dependence on a stable and healthy planet and the absolute necessity to care for it.