photo: Pauline Sauer
Bio
Gregory Jacobsen is a painter based in Chicago, Il. His work has been exhibited across the US and Europe in spaces such as Long Beach Museum of Art, Wright Exhibition Space, Casino Luxembourg, Zg Gallery, and Arsenic Galerie. Jacobsen has been featured in Hi-Fructose, Hidden Champion (Japan), New American Paintings, Seattle Stranger, Chicago Reader, and Chicago Tribune. He has provided cover art for music artists including Tropical Fuck Storm, Controlled Bleeding, To Live & Shave in LA, and Daniel Knox. His work is included in collections of The Museum of Modern Art and The Antoine de Galbert Foundation.
Statement
I like bodies! I love and hate my body. It’s a meat casing, a puppet. The figures I paint are comic and grotesque character stand-ins for me. They express ways my body can transform in perception and reality.
My painting process is exploratory. I’m calculating how I should present myself to the world. Sometimes I’m beautiful but often I am disgusting. My giant oozing pores and random hairs inspire abject fasciation. Anxiety fuels my attention to glamorous and disgusting details. Obsession feeds my love of form.