Alan Jacobson

Artist Statement

Alan M. Jacobson


For the past thirty-five years my artistic interest has been drawn to representations of imagined people, landscapes, and abstractions rendered with wood and paint. I create to release images that my mind collects in the course of my daily life and to communicate with the people who see my work. Whatever form these depictions take, they reflect movement across the boundary between my inner and outer worlds, my introspective nature and my other roles of therapist and neuro-scientist.

My figurative paintings frequently depict isolated individuals, sometimes trying to make contact and/or comfort one another. Often, I paint only part of the human figure. I commonly focus on eyes and hands as the parts of our bodies that, to me, most capture our emotions. Fingers and hair often double as landscape elements. Over time I have added background and decreased the size of the figures to emphasize the world and universe beyond. These silhouettes look out with us at the world beyond.

Recently I have focused my imagination on landscapes, so I have removed the figures completely to access the universe beyond and convey a dialogue between its strange beauty and the struggles we endure in the world we inhabit. I am particularly struck by power of mountains, which become the people in my world, like fingers and hair are my trees and forests. I turn to the sky to fuel my thoughts of what might be beyond our grasp.

I typically use oil paint and work mainly on plywood sheets, wood planks and MDF board. Sometimes I develop ideas for paintings at a lumberyard where I choose wood based on the images that I see in the grain. My people are usually shaped and placed in awkward positions. I choose unusual color combinations to enhance the intensity in each situation. I may apply paint thickly and quickly, pushing myself to get the paint out in a torrent to escape conscious oversight. I also drip, pour, spit and apply pieces of encrusted paint and other substances to create added dimensions and texture that I love to touch and feel after the painting dries. My landscapes always begin with thin washes of paint that is pored on to create a horizon. I then use the chance combinations of color and shape in ways that are not predictable before I start. Each step is an exploration into unknown territory and as a partly-planned venture, the depictions change direction over time as I return many times to build on each draft until the work feels complete.

These shifting perspectives have been influenced by my interest in Japanese temple architecture, Chinese scroll paintings, expressionists like Chaim Soutine, and the sculpted figures of Magdalena Abakanowicz.

I frame my paintings with construction grade lumber, metal strapping and other common building materials to provide a contrasting structural environment. I think of these as ways to package the work to create dissonance and discourse with the panels on which I paint.

My work can be seen on my website: www.alanmjacobsonartist.com