Untitled "Mapas"
Jon Jacobsen
Sept 4 2014/ Digital photo manipulation
[This untitled image from Jacobsen’s “Mapas” (maps) series deals with the body as surreal. One can’t help be see the influence in or likeness to Matthew Barney’s production still kiss scene in “Drawing Restraint 9”. The figures there are also ‘cut off’ or obscured at the midsection. However, Barney’s work speaks to the ‘external surreal’ with costuming and props, while Jacobsen's deals with the ‘internal surreal’, illustrating representations of internal physiology intermingled with vein-like whisp shapes that distort and warp through and around the bodies.]
Jon Jacobsen
Sept 4 2014/ Digital photo manipulation
[This untitled image from Jacobsen’s “Mapas” (maps) series deals with the body as surreal. One can’t help be see the influence in or likeness to Matthew Barney’s production still kiss scene in “Drawing Restraint 9”. The figures there are also ‘cut off’ or obscured at the midsection. However, Barney’s work speaks to the ‘external surreal’ with costuming and props, while Jacobsen's deals with the ‘internal surreal’, illustrating representations of internal physiology intermingled with vein-like whisp shapes that distort and warp through and around the bodies.]
Untitled "The Present"
Jon Jacobsen
March 13 2014/ Digital photo manipulation
[This untitled image from Jacobsen’s series “The Present” also deals with the body as surreal. Here, though, the artist is obviously trying to visually articulate physiological meets the mental as the figure’s vascular system is seen out-of alignment, separating from his pensive, but unfazed and oblivious form. Soul decay or heart ache? -who can speculate other than we know whatever ailment present is negatively impacting the seated man as his skin takes on the blueish pale of death and his chest grotesquely opens to reveal fatty tissue and exposed visceral organs.]
Jon Jacobsen
March 13 2014/ Digital photo manipulation
[This untitled image from Jacobsen’s series “The Present” also deals with the body as surreal. Here, though, the artist is obviously trying to visually articulate physiological meets the mental as the figure’s vascular system is seen out-of alignment, separating from his pensive, but unfazed and oblivious form. Soul decay or heart ache? -who can speculate other than we know whatever ailment present is negatively impacting the seated man as his skin takes on the blueish pale of death and his chest grotesquely opens to reveal fatty tissue and exposed visceral organs.]
Untitled "The Present"
Jon Jacobsen
Feb 28 2014/ Cinemagraph
[This untitled image (also from “The Present” series) features the body surreal in a flixel or cinemagraphic form, or simply put a .gif still image with moving elements. From a semi-objective viewpoint, we might ‘read’ this cinemagraph as embodying shameful despair in vanity. Shame is very clearly articulated in the figure’s body language with one hand consciously concealing his eyes from the viewer, while the classical embodiment of Vanitas and mortality is symbolically indicated in the image by the presence of the skull (even though it appears to be non-human animal). The facial distortion of the mouth and inverted ‘floating’ hand not only serve as visual clues to perpetuate this ‘read’ of shame and despair, but also speak to the fragmented body in art that Jacobsen has conceptually reoriented, dissected, and twisted.]
Jon Jacobsen
Feb 28 2014/ Cinemagraph
[This untitled image (also from “The Present” series) features the body surreal in a flixel or cinemagraphic form, or simply put a .gif still image with moving elements. From a semi-objective viewpoint, we might ‘read’ this cinemagraph as embodying shameful despair in vanity. Shame is very clearly articulated in the figure’s body language with one hand consciously concealing his eyes from the viewer, while the classical embodiment of Vanitas and mortality is symbolically indicated in the image by the presence of the skull (even though it appears to be non-human animal). The facial distortion of the mouth and inverted ‘floating’ hand not only serve as visual clues to perpetuate this ‘read’ of shame and despair, but also speak to the fragmented body in art that Jacobsen has conceptually reoriented, dissected, and twisted.]