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 a blurry style which became his signature
for almost twenty years in the early 1980s while completing his graduate work
in San Francisco. He first received public acclaim with the exhibition of
his Interim Photographs at the Grey Art Gallery of New York University. These
shadowy pale portraits were intended to evoke the sense of loss and faded
memory associated with the AIDS epidemic. The blurred features of each of
his human subjects indicate the futility of capturing the true human likeness
in portraiture.
Jacobson's Songs of Sentient Beings series, first displayed in 1996, is figurative much like his Interim Photographs. However, in contrast with the luminosity of his prior works, the images in this project depict deep black backgrounds and white ghostly figures with heads that bend, sleep, stretch and howl, all the while floating on a velvety ground that hovers on a white background. Continuing to work in this grey color scheme, Jacobson captures an almost monochromatic deep black evocation of the flow of life in his Thoughts series (1990-1998). Photographing a broad spectrum of subjects from tightly cropped faces to fields of grass and water, Jacobson deliberately links the human figure to nature at large, suggesting a subtle flowing narrative throughout the project.
Jacobson shifted to color prints and began working outside of the studio in the late 1990s. He captured urban and rural street views in his Untitled (1999-2001) and New Year's Day (2002-2003) series which culminated in a second monograph published by Hatje Cantz in 2005. Recently, 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. A recent body of work entitled Some Planes, displayed in the gallery in 2008, is a meditation on landscape and horizon. Decode Books recently published Jacobson's third monograph called A Series of Human Decisions, featuring an interview by Ian Berry. The book includes a multitude of intimate, focused photos, all emphasizing themes of design and construction that humans encounter on a daily basis. This year, Jacobson has been working on a series of still lifes in which he photographs various geometric forms set against contrasting backgrounds in nature.
Jacobson's Songs of Sentient Beings series, first displayed in 1996, is figurative much like his Interim Photographs. However, in contrast with the luminosity of his prior works, the images in this project depict deep black backgrounds and white ghostly figures with heads that bend, sleep, stretch and howl, all the while floating on a velvety ground that hovers on a white background. Continuing to work in this grey color scheme, Jacobson captures an almost monochromatic deep black evocation of the flow of life in his Thoughts series (1990-1998). Photographing a broad spectrum of subjects from tightly cropped faces to fields of grass and water, Jacobson deliberately links the human figure to nature at large, suggesting a subtle flowing narrative throughout the project.
Jacobson shifted to color prints and began working outside of the studio in the late 1990s. He captured urban and rural street views in his Untitled (1999-2001) and New Year's Day (2002-2003) series which culminated in a second monograph published by Hatje Cantz in 2005. Recently, 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. A recent body of work entitled Some Planes, displayed in the gallery in 2008, is a meditation on landscape and horizon. Decode Books recently published Jacobson's third monograph called A Series of Human Decisions, featuring an interview by Ian Berry. The book includes a multitude of intimate, focused photos, all emphasizing themes of design and construction that humans encounter on a daily basis. This year, Jacobson has been working on a series of still lifes in which he photographs various geometric forms set against contrasting backgrounds in nature.
Untitled (Some Planes) 2009 [view
images]
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]