As a child, Laurence Jenkell was not allowed any sweets and suffered from not being able to eat candies like many of her friends did. She was greatly frustrated by this and in her frustration, she composed her first work of candy on canvas with real candies heated in the kitchen oven. She is a great example of how rejection and a feeling of revenge can turn sweet as candy when channeled positively. She turned her frustration as a child to a self-made artist as she grew up.
“Only one twist, draped once. Never the same twist, never the same drape. The beauty in the simplicity,” says she.
In the early 1990’s, she started experimenting with different mediums that included oil, acrylic, watercolor and engraving. She eventually discovered inclusion resins – the material that gave her artwork sheen and resiliency. Each Candy Sculpture is a work with Plexiglas. She cuts the plexiglass and prepares the sheet to put in the oven along with the inner shape of the structure on which she rolls her sheet. Once the Plexiglas becomes soft, the work of Sculpture making starts.
Titled “Crossroads of the world”, Laurence Jenkell exhibits her sculptures for a period of one year at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, located between 8th and 9th Avenue and 40th and 42nd Street West Manhattan, near Broadway Ave and Times Square.
I chose the Elephant because it symbolizes strength. The pressure and the act of torsion that I applied to its body expresses a radical gesture of refusal of what the animal world is going through today. Not only do I revolt against the famine faced by animals in some countries and eve in some communities, but also more generally against the physical abuse they suffer (mistreatment, violence, poaching etc).
Unlike poachers, I artistically mistreated the elephant, twisting its stomach to shock public and raise awareness. I chose to create my subject in a noble material for the Elephant King, in poly brilliant bronze that adds strength to my twist and magnifies the work as a jewel thus referring to the illegal trade of the animal’s tusks, used to make ivory jewelry.
Featuring her famous Flag Candy sculpture collection and 80 additional artworks, the exhibit is hosted on the second floor of the terminal as well as in a pop-up gallery in the South Wing of the main concourse.
The ribbon cutting ceremony celebrating its opening took place on Monday, January 22.
