Yenny Cocq

Yenny Cocq is a German-born sculptor whose work centers on the human figure as a vehicle for emotion, intimacy, and connection. An artist from an early age, she created her first painting at six and sold her first work at fifteen. After completing university studies in Germany and later earning an MBA in Santa Fe, she returned fully to the arts, building a career that has included printmaking, painting, teaching, and sculpture. From 2004 to 2011, Cocq co-owned a working studio and gallery in Copenhagen, where she taught printmaking, lithography, and acrylic painting. The restrained Scandinavian design language she encountered there became an important influence on the simplified forms that would later define her sculpture.

Cocq began seriously pursuing bronze sculpture in 2008 and has since developed a highly recognizable body of figurative work. Her couples and family groups are reduced to elongated, almost geometric silhouettes, with emotion carried through subtle shifts in posture, proximity, and body language rather than facial detail. She typically begins each work in clay, wax, or metal before it is cast in bronze using the traditional lost-wax process, and she is closely involved in the finishing and patination of the completed piece. What appears visually simple is the result of years of refinement, with the essential gesture of each figure carefully preserved.

Her sculpture has been exhibited through galleries and juried shows in the United States and Europe and ranges from intimate tabletop works to large-scale outdoor installations. In 2019, her monumental sculpture Caress entered the permanent collection of the Benson Sculpture Garden in Loveland, Colorado, following her participation in the annual Loveland sculpture exhibition. Today, Cocq works from Santa Fe, continuing to create bronze sculptures centered on companionship, family, and the quiet physical language through which people communicate affection and belonging. ×