Winter Salon 2024

STATEMENT
When I am making my sculpture, I become totally immersed in the work, listening to music, and work many hours at a stretch. Ideas grab me, just pop into my head. It could be a person, their mental or physical condition or something I hear on the news or see on the street. Whatever it is, I respond to it as an aspect of my own being which can be universally understood. When I am conceiving a piece, I first make a sketch on paper. When satisfied that the image represents what I want to say, I build the piece out of clay. I make the molds directly from the clay model and then cast the piece in bronze. My art will always originate from a desire to express something that is powerful to me. I don't search for something to express, it comes, and I need to create it.

BIO
Jerry Atkins first examined and explored the human psyche with a scientific approach through a career in psychiatry. He received his medical degree from the New York University School of Medicine with a focus in psychoanalysis. It was during his time as a medical student that he first began to attend sculpture & pottery workshops to explore his interest in representing the human condition artistically. As his technique and style began to draw attention, he decided to formally pursue sculpture academically at the McNay Art Institute in 1970. When he later returned to New York, he continued his career in psychology with a successful practice as a psychoanalyst, but at the same time started an artist studio in Woodstock, NY. Atkins has been producing work for over 50 years now and his artistic career has included longstanding representation with the The Roko Gallery, and The Kraushaar Galleries, as well as shows at the Kornblatt Gallery and Art Latitude Gallery. Atkins lives and works in New York.