JACOB LITTLEJOHN
Metamorphosis
Artist Reception: April 6th, 6-8 PM
April 6th - May 6th, 2023
Click HERE for a checklist
Matthew Barney once described his work process as pinpointing a geographical situation which was resilient enough to contain his own biographical injection. The abstract compositions of Jacob Littlejohn seem to operate along similar fault lines. Painting primarily on burlap, it’s worth noting that Littlejohn’s native Scotland - specifically Dundee - was once the lead exporter of jute in the 19th century so the canvas itself here connects the artist back to his roots (even though he’s currently in New York finishing his MFA at Hunter College). Pictorially these images owe a debt to a rural area some hundred miles north of Manhattan. Jacob references supernatural stories about The Catskill Witch for his latest series. “The carbon black I am using is a material that has direct linkage to these regional folktales, one section in particular about the mountains being made from bones after a human-eating monster was frozen in time.”
Jacob Littlejohn (b. 1995, Edinburgh, Scotland), is a Scottish visual artist who graduated from The Glasgow School of Art where he received a First Class (BA Hons) in Painting and Printmaking. His practice is concerned with his personal interaction and investigation with the natural world. Exploring the ways in which people choose to interact and represent place and spaces, while recognising and honoring the melancholy and poetics that characterize these ideals. His process resides within a profound interest in variations of documentation, forms of cyclical cycles, folklore, deep time and the act of foraging for natural materials.
