Paul Jacobsen
October (4)
2015

Name: October (4)
Brand: Paul Jacobsen
Price: 9500 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

In "Outpost", Jacobsen’s new body of work records scenes from a year when societal boundaries where crossed and personal dreams set into motion. The paintings in this exhibition continue and expand on the ideas of Jacobsen’s 2014 exhibition, “Lean-to,” which featured artworks that invited viewers to contemplate still-life images of interiors from the artist’s domestic spaces and black and white arrangements from the artist’s workspace. While seemingly traditional still lives, the works served as the artist’s subtle critique of industrialized society. The content and technique speak to Jacobsen’s attempt to insulate himself from this very type of industrial environment and modernist influences. Jacobsen purchased a miner’s cabin in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado just prior to the legalization of marijuana, and the paintings in Outpost serve as documents of his experiments in growing this newly legal plant. In these still lifes, the marijuana plant is the central focus against a dark background, along with wild mushrooms collected on long hikes and crystals gifted from friends. These paintings hearken back to traditional Dutch paintings of tulips, itself a coveted plant in its day. Deploying the technique of lens flare, Jacobsen highlights the importance of the camera, while also referencing the religious, spiritual, and cultist motif of light symbolizing the divine. The usage of this “heavenly” light on these cannabis plants both humorously references ideas of the “sacred herb,” while serving as homage to this new law regarding marijuana - Jacobsen sees this as an innovative first step towards ending a global war on drugs. One central work in the exhibition is an installation of wooden beams and stacked wood, referencing the artist’s cabin and adjacent dynamite storage shack that served as starting point for this body of work. This rural “outpost” – a self-imposed hermitage, provides a remote seclusion from modern industrial society. Jacobsen’s retreats to this reclusive space serves as a semblance of freedom from society and the possibility of self-sustenance, evoking the western, pioneering spirit of homesteading, and seeking the “American Dream” along the next frontier. Jacobsen’s work is interested in the stories that the objects of the material world hold and the stories within our living spaces.

Creator:

Paul Jacobsen (1976, American)

Creation Year:

2015

Dimensions:

Height: 40 in (101.6 cm)Width: 30 in (76.2 cm)Depth: 1.5 in (3.81 cm)

Medium:

Linen,Oil

Movement & Style:

Contemporary

Period:

2010-