Jessica Drenk is an artist who sees extraordinary potential in the ordinary. Raised amidst the rugged beauty of Montana, Drenk’s childhood fostered a deep connection to the natural world — a theme that profoundly affects her artistic journey. Today, she lives and works near Rochester, New York, creating sculptures that blur the lines between the manmade and the organic.
With a process-focused approach, Drenk manipulates mass-produced objects to reveal their hidden textures and forms, drawing striking parallels between nature’s chaotic beauty and the industrial products we often overlook. “My work is an inquiry into materiality: what makes up the objects that surround us as well as the composition of the natural world,” Drenk explains. “In treating everyday objects as raw material to sculpt, I practice a form of conceptual alchemy.”
Drenk’s most recent geology-inspired series Aggregate puts junk mail and paper waste to use, along with wall sculptures made from books.
Some of Drenk’s most remarkable series involve sculptures crafted from old books. In the Compression series, she has cut, intertwined, compressed, and coated the publications with wax to create framed artworks in which visual complexity correlates with the variety and density of information stored in the books themselves. While in the Cerebral mapping wall installation she used similar technique to reflect patterns in nature, from capillaries and neurons to rivers and deltas.
In Drenk’s latest series, Aggregate, she utilizes used paper waste beyond books, as she has glued together junk mail, catalogs, coupons, manilla envelopes, colored paper fliers, newspaper, and cardboard, in endless layers. The organic, layered structures are fossil-like. These pieces, smooth to the touch and rich with detail, evoke the passage of time and the life cycles of objects. By reimagining books and paper waste as geological formations, Drenk invites viewers to reflect on the transient nature of both manmade and natural creations. “On a long enough time scale, there is no difference between manmade and nature; in the life cycle of objects, everything eventually returns to the earth,” she has said.
By transforming waste paper and other discarded materials into timeless, organic forms, Drenk challenges viewers to reconsider the value and lifecycle of the objects surrounding us
Drenk’s fascination with the natural world is evident in her choice of materials and in the forms her sculptures take. Her pieces often resemble coral reefs, driftwood, or sedimentary rock formations. The interplay of texture and structure in her work highlights the beauty inherent in the every day, turning waste into art that resonates with universal themes of decay, renewal, and transformation.
Her artistic philosophy — rooted in the belief that art can uncover the sublime within the mundane—is a testament to Drenk’s ingenuity. Her work is an inspiring reminder of the connectedness of all things, celebrating both the material and the ephemeral with equal admiration.
Follow the artist on Instagram for more inspiration, and an intriguing behind-the-scenes look at her process.
Images © Jessica Drenk