[artist statement]
My recent work is a reaction against a society that has no patience for imagination. Children can see a world long abandoned by adults, where tigers prowl freely in forests full of secrets, where inanimate snowmen are granted life. Many believe that imagination is foolish, unworthy of consideration, and something to be outgrown. Modern thought demands that an imaginative bond with nature needs to be overcome by allegedly mature ways of thinking. Not long ago, humans connected with the world through myth and mystery, but now this kind of thinking is regarded as primitive.
Spending the last year in my now-deserted hometown has left me with feelings of nostalgia and sentiment. Missing the company of old friends, I have created the village of Podunk as an act of remembrance. It is an imagined world in which I have rewritten my life story, patched together from memories, photographs, and fables.
I have constructed consumable products and enchanted relics to substantiate the material and spiritual needs of the people who populate the town of Podunk. They range from the commonplace to the sacred, differing widely in their uses. Though they are pieced together from rubbish, these objects assert that imagination imbues the everyday with the ethereal.
© 2009 Jacob Smiley
[resume]
Education
2009 - 2011 University of Delaware, Newark, DE, MFA (concentration painting)
2006 - 2008 Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA, BFA (concentration painting)
2005 - 2006 School of Visual Arts, New York, NY (concentration illustration)
2003 - 2005 Keystone College, La Plume, PA, AFA (concentration graphic design)
Honors
2009-2010 University of Delaware Full Tuition Waiver
2006-2008 Kutztown University Dean’s List Academic Recognition
2003-2005 Keystone College Dean's Scholarship Award
2003 Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society Induction
Exhibitions
Solo
2009 Paper Kite Gallery, Kingston, PA
2009 Heitmann Atelier & Gallery, Lancaster, PA
2008 Jeffrey Creedon Gallery, Scranton, PA
2007 McFarland Gallery, Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA
Group
2008 Cohen Gallery, Goggle Works, Reading, PA
2008 Sharadin Gallery, Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA
2005 Lindner Gallery, Keystone College, La Plume, PA
2003 Endless Mountains Council of the Arts, Tunkhannock, PA
2003 McDonald Art Gallery, College Misericordia, Dallas, PA