Bill Jacobson grew up in Norwich, Connecticut and
received his B.F.A. from Brown University and his M.F.A. from the San Francisco
Art Institute. Jacobson began working in his signature blurry style in the
early 1980s while completing his graduate work in San Francisco, but he first
received major public attention with the exhibition of the "Interim Photographs"
at the Grey Art Gallery of New York University while at the same time appearing
in many gallery group exhibitions in 1993. These shadowy pale portraits were
intended to evoke the sense of loss and faded memory associated with the AIDS
epidemic, although, as in all of Jacobson's work his subjects were selected
from among friends who he photographs in his studio. These pictures are also
about the futility of capturing human likeness in portraiture.
An earlier series of Interim Landscapes shot outdoors and resembling memories of childhood were made in the same way, black and white negatives subtly printed as monochromatic color prints. The "Songs of Sentient Beings" series, first shown in 1996, is still figurative but now the prints have deep black backgrounds and white ghostly figures and heads bend, sleep, stretch and howl all the while floating on a velvety ground, and the ground itself floats on a white background. The Songs of Sentient Beings next evolved into the Thoughts series- an almost monochromatic deep black evocation of the flow of life- from tightly cropped faces to fields of grass and water- a deliberate linking of the figure to nature at large-suggesting a flow subtle narrative.
Jacobson shifted to color and working out of the studio in the late 1990s which culminated in a second monograph published by Hatje Cantz in 2005. He has recently been working with a variety of themes, in color and in focus, yet never departing from his meditation on our passage through the world.
An earlier series of Interim Landscapes shot outdoors and resembling memories of childhood were made in the same way, black and white negatives subtly printed as monochromatic color prints. The "Songs of Sentient Beings" series, first shown in 1996, is still figurative but now the prints have deep black backgrounds and white ghostly figures and heads bend, sleep, stretch and howl all the while floating on a velvety ground, and the ground itself floats on a white background. The Songs of Sentient Beings next evolved into the Thoughts series- an almost monochromatic deep black evocation of the flow of life- from tightly cropped faces to fields of grass and water- a deliberate linking of the figure to nature at large-suggesting a flow subtle narrative.
Jacobson shifted to color and working out of the studio in the late 1990s which culminated in a second monograph published by Hatje Cantz in 2005. He has recently been working with a variety of themes, in color and in focus, yet never departing from his meditation on our passage through the world.
Some Planes 2007-2008 [view
images]
A Series of Human Decisions 2004-2008 [view
images]
New Year's Day 2002-2003 [view
images]
Untitled 1999-2001 [view
images]
Thought Series 1990-1998 [view
images]
Songs of Sentient Beings 1994-1995 [view
images]
Interim Series 1992-1993 [view
images]