So, clearly this is not a review. I think it’s morally dubious to review the work of friends so this is more a reflection on thoughts from Dan’s recent exhibition.
Do you see that picture? Photo? Photo-realist? What if you knew that the whole picture is rendered in pencil, graphite? Which is exactly what it is; a hand drawn picture rendered purely through the medium of graphite. Have a look at some other works (http://danieljacobsart.com/default.html). What do you think?
What struck me viewing Dan’s works was the manual labour that went into each picture. You can see the work, the smudges left by thumb or brushed by the side of the palm, the small flecks and marks carefully rendered by hand. And in standing so close to each picture to gauge how it was constructed the nearest comparison I could come up with were those masters of the dot; Seurat and Signac. Look closely at their works and the structural whole dissolves into compositional elements. Stand back and those elements coalesce into a pictural whole. The eye resolves and forms those structural elements into meaning and significance.
And so it is with Dan’s works. What you start seeing is the elements of line and shade and how they create a consistent visual whole. Line is not queen here, shade is by far the most important structural element. Yet, neither truly dominates as both are essential in visual terms. As with parvocellular and magnocellular visual processing; these different elements coalesce to generate finely rendered, often photorealistic pictures.
Are these pictures copies, drawn from memory or imagination? I don’t think it really matters if we discuss them in terms of description or interpretation. What becomes apparent is that these are no quick renderings. If ‘slow food’ is a current trend in gastronomy can we also talk about ‘slow art’? There is obviously a significant act of labour invested in creating these works. These are the product of carefully applied craft. Which is not to say they are craft art: although there shouldn’t be a need to make a distinction. Craft is merely the skill that all artists, of whatever discipline, need to practise in order to create their art. And if the mainstream art world is impressed by the studio system of some artists churning out identikit branded art to meet supply and demand, then the lone artist producing their unique works, needs equal attention. I would suggest that the majority of artists continue to practice the work of primary and initial imprimatur on their works. Their physical intimacy with their works is what makes it so essential to view at first hand.
And that is what I am left with from Dan’s works: immense skill and immense talent that causes us to reassess what is art and the act of visual representation as mediated through the eye and hand.
jdvpcreatespace 