Hi,
For more
information, images or if you are interested in attending the opening reception,
please contact me at 310.857.6994 or via email.
Thanks!
~Jeannine
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Jeannine Schechter
Jacobi
FreshPR
(310) 857-6994
Night Travelers and Other Waking Dreams on Exhibit at the Fresno
Art Museum September 10, 2010 to January 7, 2011
Kathryn Jacobi Unanimously Named 2010
Distinguished
Woman Artist
Opening Night Reception September 10 from
6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
(LOS ANGELES) August 26 2010 [WINDOWS-1252?]– The Fresno Art Museum
Council of 100 Distinguished Women Artists has chosen painter and photographer
Kathryn Jacobi as the Distinguished Woman Artist of 2010. The museum will
celebrate [WINDOWS-1252?]Jacobi’s career with an extensive exhibition of her
work entitled [WINDOWS-1252?]“Night Travelers and Other Waking
[WINDOWS-1252?]Dreams,” which explores the imaginative forces of dreaming in a
collection of more than 30 works in oil on
paper, wood panel and canvas. [WINDOWS-1252?]Jacobi’s paintings will display in
the Fig Garden Gallery.
“The Council of 100 has persistently chosen
women artists of great distinction [WINDOWS-1252?]– it has been patient in
waiting for Kathryn Jacobi to come of age, that is, to celebrate her 60th
birthday. Unanimously elected as the 22nd Distinguished Woman Artist by the
Fresno Art [WINDOWS-1252?]Museum’s Council of 100, Jacobi joins the prestigious
company of the twenty-one California women previously honored by this annual
award including June Wayne, Helen Lundeberg, Ruth Weisberg, Viola Frey, Nancy
Genn, Olga Seem, Junko Chodos, and Joan [WINDOWS-1252?]Tanner,” explained
curator Jacquelin Pilar. [WINDOWS-1252?]“Long awaited, this exhibition spans the
40 years of [WINDOWS-1252?]Jacobi’s life spent as a professional
[WINDOWS-1252?]artist.”
The exhibit, [WINDOWS-1252?]Jacobi’s fourth at the
museum and fifth in Fresno, will open the evening of Friday, September 10, 2010
with a special event from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Admission to the opening reception
is free for museum members and the [WINDOWS-1252?]artist’s guests; other patrons
will be charged a $10 entrance fee.
In addition, the Council of 100 will host an
invitation-only luncheon on Saturday, September 11, 2010, after which Jacobi
will present a slideshow lecture, open to the public, at 1:00 p.m. in the
[WINDOWS-1252?]museum’s Bonner Auditorium.
“The Fresno Art Museum has
long been a haven for California's [WINDOWS-1252?]artists,” said Kathryn Jacobi.
[WINDOWS-1252?]“I am delighted to have been selected for this honor and look
forward to sharing my work with the [WINDOWS-1252?]museum’s
[WINDOWS-1252?]patrons.”
About the Exhibit
Assembled by veteran curator
Jacquelin Pilar, this unusual exhibit promises to open a door into the
[WINDOWS-1252?]viewers’ personal unknowns, freeing both their angels and their
demons. Most of the exhibit comprises paintings completed from the mid 1990s
through 2008.
The centerpiece of the show is a group of 12 paintings,
collectively called [WINDOWS-1252?]“Night [WINDOWS-1252?]Travelers,” which has
never before been exhibited together. Its subject matter is raw and uncensored.
Moving quickly through emotional [WINDOWS-1252?]states— from gentle and humorous
circus imagery to the brutality of [WINDOWS-1252?]“The Burning
[WINDOWS-1252?]Hand,” the stuff of [WINDOWS-1252?]nightmares—Jacobi explores
what it means to be fully human and vulnerable in a very dangerous world. Better
known for her realist paintings and portraits, Jacobi has rarely shown pieces
from this challenging and thought-provoking body of work.
“The Night [WINDOWS-1252?]Travelers” is complemented by
exhibitions of related works.
Six smaller paintings and one large panel,
collectively called [WINDOWS-1252?]“The Minor [WINDOWS-1252?]Pantheon,” explore
the life stages of birth, youth, adulthood and death and are dedicated to the
memory of [WINDOWS-1252?]Jacobi’s friend, writer and musician Barbara Karp.
“Sleepwalking Through the [WINDOWS-1252?]Apocalypse,” a series
of paintings that Jacobi has been very intentionally planning and executing
these past ten years, is her response to the terrorist attacks on New York
[WINDOWS-1252?]City’s Twin Towers.
The final
collection in this show is a series called [WINDOWS-1252?]“Headshots,” which the
artist considers to be alternatives to traditional portraits. In these works,
Jacobi [WINDOWS-1252?]“mines the [WINDOWS-1252?]image” to explores up to ten
variations of a single visage.
Three
additional paintings, [WINDOWS-1252?]“Boneyard,” [WINDOWS-1252?]“Twins,” and
[WINDOWS-1252?]“Woman Turning Into a [WINDOWS-1252?]Tree,” round out the
exhibition.
“When I begin a painting, it is an instinctive act. The
paintings in this show emerged without my understanding their meaning. Analysis
comes later, usually when I am far into a series. Other [WINDOWS-1252?]people’s
projections onto my paintings often lead them to draw entirely different
[WINDOWS-1252?]interpretations—all valid in their own right, as would be true of
any interpretation of [WINDOWS-1252?]dreams,” explained Jacobi.
[WINDOWS-1252?]“It is my goal that this exhibit will deliver both a left hook
and a [WINDOWS-1252?]caress.”
About the Artist
Born in New York, Kathryn
Jacobi has spent most of her life in California. Classically trained, she counts
the early Northern European Renaissance painters Durer, Hans Holbein the Younger
and Roger Van der Weyden among her greatest influences. Jacobi studied painting,
drawing, graphics and photography at California State University, Northridge
where she earned a B.A. in 1978 and an M.A. in 1980.
A prolific
artist in many mediums including etching, printmaking, drawing and watercolor
painting, Jacobi has focused her most recent efforts in oil painting and digital
photography. She has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions throughout the
United States and in Canada, Germany, Denmark, the former Czechoslovakia and
Spain. [WINDOWS-1252?]Jacobi’s works of art belong to the public collections of
the Centrum Judaicum (Stiftung Neue Synogogue) in Berlin, Germany, the San
Francisco Cultural and Civic Center, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Cornell
University, the New York Public Library, the Fresno Art Museum, California State
University, Northridge, the National Watercolor Society and the Skirball Museum
among many other cultural institutions.
Jacobi has published illustrations in the
London Times Literary Supplement, Westways Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times
Book Review, among other publications. Through her own small publishing company,
Waxwing Editions, Jacobi has released two books: [WINDOWS-1252?]“The
[WINDOWS-1252?]Bride’s [WINDOWS-1252?]Chamber,” a recently discovered story by
Charles Dickens, and [WINDOWS-1252?]“The Popsicle [WINDOWS-1252?]Moon” by Sean
Stratton, both of which are accompanied by her original illustrations.
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