Jacobson began his
signature out of focus images in 1989. After exhibiting in a number of group exhibitions
in New York, he received public acclaim in 1993 with a solo show of his Interim
Figures at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery. These shadowy pale portraits
were intended to evoke the sense of loss and faded memory associated with the
AIDS epidemic. The blurred features of his human subjects indicate the futility
of capturing the true human likeness in portraiture.
Jacobson's subsequent Songs of Sentient Beings (1994-1995) continues his interest in the blurred figure. In contrast to the bleached luminosity of his prior work, these images depict deep black backgrounds enveloping ghostly figures who bend, sleep, stretch and howl. Continuing in this dark palette, Jacobson went on to capture an almost monochromatic deep-black evocation of the flow of life in Thought Series (1996-1998). Photographing a broad spectrum of subjects from tightly cropped faces to fields of grass and surfaces of water, Jacobson deliberately links the human figure to nature, suggesting the constant but subtle links between the two. Bill Jacobson 1989-1997, published by Twin Palms in 1998, is a survey of work from this nine year period.
Returning to New York from India in 1999, Jacobson retained the out of focus but shifted to color, photographing both urban and rural landscapes in Untitled (1999-2001) and New Year's Day (2002-2003). A monograph of this work, published by Hatje Cantz in 2005, includes an extensive essay by the noted photographic historian Eugenia Parry.
Since 2003 he has worked with a variety of themes, in color and in focus, all the while retaining his meditation on the human passage through the world. Jacobson's third monograph, A Series of Human Decisions (2005-2009), which includes an interview between the artist and Ian Berry, curator at the Tang Museum was published by Decode Books in 2009. This series depicts a multitude of intimate, focused places from the real world, all emphasizing the complexities of space and objects that people create and encounter on a daily basis. Some Planes, exhibited at the gallery in 2008, addresses the intersection between minimalist landscape and geometry.
For the past two years, Jacobson has been exploring a new body of work entitled Place (Series). They are minimal still-lives, and are the result of placing rectangles of various sizes in a variety of both man-made and natural settings. They suggest both a range of architectures and the contradictions between architecture and nature. Inherent in this work is the dialogue between the 'abstract' and the 'real', an idea also present in his earlier, out-of-focus images. There are also notions of the infinite, echoing the very white and very dark portraits Jacobson began nearly twenty years ago.
Jacobson's subsequent Songs of Sentient Beings (1994-1995) continues his interest in the blurred figure. In contrast to the bleached luminosity of his prior work, these images depict deep black backgrounds enveloping ghostly figures who bend, sleep, stretch and howl. Continuing in this dark palette, Jacobson went on to capture an almost monochromatic deep-black evocation of the flow of life in Thought Series (1996-1998). Photographing a broad spectrum of subjects from tightly cropped faces to fields of grass and surfaces of water, Jacobson deliberately links the human figure to nature, suggesting the constant but subtle links between the two. Bill Jacobson 1989-1997, published by Twin Palms in 1998, is a survey of work from this nine year period.
Returning to New York from India in 1999, Jacobson retained the out of focus but shifted to color, photographing both urban and rural landscapes in Untitled (1999-2001) and New Year's Day (2002-2003). A monograph of this work, published by Hatje Cantz in 2005, includes an extensive essay by the noted photographic historian Eugenia Parry.
Since 2003 he has worked with a variety of themes, in color and in focus, all the while retaining his meditation on the human passage through the world. Jacobson's third monograph, A Series of Human Decisions (2005-2009), which includes an interview between the artist and Ian Berry, curator at the Tang Museum was published by Decode Books in 2009. This series depicts a multitude of intimate, focused places from the real world, all emphasizing the complexities of space and objects that people create and encounter on a daily basis. Some Planes, exhibited at the gallery in 2008, addresses the intersection between minimalist landscape and geometry.
For the past two years, Jacobson has been exploring a new body of work entitled Place (Series). They are minimal still-lives, and are the result of placing rectangles of various sizes in a variety of both man-made and natural settings. They suggest both a range of architectures and the contradictions between architecture and nature. Inherent in this work is the dialogue between the 'abstract' and the 'real', an idea also present in his earlier, out-of-focus images. There are also notions of the infinite, echoing the very white and very dark portraits Jacobson began nearly twenty years ago.
Place (Series) [view
images]
Some Planes [view
images]
A Series of Human Decisions [view
images]
Untitled and New Year's Day [view
images]
Song of Sentient Beings and Thought Series [view
images]
Interim Series [view
images]
