Jim Jacobs
Fray
May 27 – July 17, 2022

Artist Statement: Wood is an ideal medium for me. Formerly a living organism, it is constructed of cells that, even after being cut and dried, continue to respond to the environment. Wood expands and contracts with varying levels of humidity. It turns darker, lighter, or changes colors depending on its exposure to light. Wood is deeply entwined in our lives. Despite being replaced by plastic and steel in numerous instances, it continues to be the medium from which we create many of the objects we use in our everyday lives. Tables where we eat, chairs that support us, beds where we sleep, even our homes are still built of former trees. Wood, and the objects we create from it, have a physicality and a relationship to our bodies and our lives that lend themselves to be metaphors for us, our social and political idiosyncrasies and, in particular, our role in nature.

Jim Jacobs was the 2020 Rocky Mountain Biennial Grand Prize Winner at the Museum of Art Fort Collins. Jim Jacobs was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from Jacksonville University, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from East Carolina University. From 1985 to 2015 he was a professor of visual art at Weber State University in Ogden, UT.

Lynnette C. Jung-Springberg Gallery

Jerry Monteith
Attractors
May 27 – July 17, 2022

Artist Statement:

Traditionally, fishing flies are made of organic materials such as feathers and fur, and are designed to mimic a specific insect at a particular stage of its life. In the effort to target larger fish, they are used to mimic baitfish and even mice.  In most cases, the fly does not need to be a copy, true in all bodily detail. A simulacrum will typically suffice, and for the class of flies called “attractors,” a combination of sufficiently “buggy” characteristics will do.  

My Attractors take the fishing fly as a paradigm object and portray strange, insect-like creatures. They play homage to the incredible diversity of insect life, which we typically regard as an inconvenience at best. While their kind is said to represent 90 percent of the diversity of life on our planet, our kind typically ignores them. They embody my appreciation of the small things in life and in art.

Jerry Monteith is a Professor Emeritus at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. In 1978, he received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He currently resides in Cobden, Illinois.