About Artist
After 25 years of creating works almost solely through digital processes Jakob Dwight has returned to his original medium of painting, extracting and layering images from his archives of computer-generated images using them as digital maquettes or source material, rehumanizing the pixels as he refers to it. This return from the avant-garde of imaging back to relatively ancient modes of mark-making, painting and drawing, echoes many in society’s collective seeking to escape the most detrimental aspects of technology and screen-based culture…a kind of leaving the future behind if such a thing were possible.
Described by intermedia art pioneer Claudia Hart as a classical romantic, Dwight’s paintings are as intensely philosophical as they are visually attractive. Through a variation of lines and shapes from one image to another the artist often examines properties and forces of the natural world that could be acting upon these lines and shapes as if in a generative sequence - compression, scale, complexity in noise/turbulence (ie: fractalism), and the birth and evolution of form.
A survivor of a (noncancerous) childhood brain tumor, Dwight’s images often reference neurological or biological imaging like the technicolor brain scan-like maskforms commissioned by Seattle Art Museum for their group exhibition Disguise: Masks in Global African Art. As described in the Yale University-published catalog for Disguise the artist refers to these iconic forms as analysands, a term borrowed from psychoanalysis where it means anyone undergoing psychoanalysis but in the artist’s lexicon means any thing that can be analyzed generally: maps, galaxies, civilizations, symbols, events or an artwork itself. Through this kind of abstraction artist seeks to imbue the art experience with an evolutionary visual poesy, an emotive appreciation of physics and the natural world.
In his recent solo museum exhibition and ongoing series of paintings and works on paper of the same name A Trillion Verses features paintings as visual letters through the ages relaying to the first artists and observers what we now know about the universe and the species through structured human observation, also known as science. Through such a far-reaching conversation the artist looks towards a timeless and universal assessment of art’s long held role as a mirror of human consciousness through time.
Jakob Dwight’s work has been presented internationally, including in Amsterdam, Paris, Los Angeles, Berlin, Seattle, Atlanta, Vienna, Salzburg (Switzerland) and New York. He has exhibited in Kassel, Germany as part of the Kreuzberg (13), 2012. In the same year he was awarded the Harvestworks New Works Residency in New York. In 2010, Dwight was invited to attend GlogauAIR artists' residency in Germany, and in the following year, 2011, he was awarded a United States Artist’s Residency. As part of the Aesthetics + Therapeutics Lab, a collectively run platform developed to initiate installations and experiments in immersive art and healing, Dwight has installed a multi-sensory environment at Vortex Immersion Media Dome at LA Center Studios in 2014.
He was commissioned by the Seattle Art Museum to create new work for the Disguise: Masks and Global African Art exhibition at UCLA's Fowler Museum, which traveled to the Brooklyn Museum, New York in April 2016. In 2022 he was apart of the groundbreaking Digital Combines exhibition curated by Claudia Hart at LA’s Honor Fraser Gallery - called a “must-see” by ArtForum - and most recently in 2023 Jakob Dwight had a solo exhibition at Wiregrass Museum.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Wiregrass Museum of Art (2023), Dothan, AL, Maus Contemporary (2023), Birmingham, AL, Honor Fraser Gallery (2022), Los Angeles, CA, 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair with 50Golborne Gallery (2019), London, UK, Brooklyn Museum, NY (2016), Seattle Art Museum (2015), Sedition, (world-wide/online) London, UK, Fowler Museum at UCLA (2015), Los Angeles, CA, Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival and New York Electronic Arts Festival, NY, Metro54, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Grand Bohemian Hotel / Kessler Collection Hotels, Birmingham, AL, Hotel Particulier, NY, and AKAA, Paris, France.
COLLECTIONS
Paul R. Jones Museum (AL), Rebecca and Jack Drake Collection (AL), Duke Ellington School of the Arts (DC), Peggy Cooper Cafritz Collection (DC), Harvestworks Digital Media Art Center (NY), Glogauer Art Residency (DE), Wiregrass Museum of Art (AL)
Jakob Dwight is represented by Maus Contemporary
CV
JAKOB DWIGHT Born in US, 1977.
Lives and works in US
Select Exhibitions
2024 “Solarwind In Array”, Maus Contemporary, Birmingham, AL [solo]
2023 “A Trillion Verses”, Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, AL [solo]
2023 “Various Analysands”, Maus Contemporary, Birmingham, AL [solo]
2022 “Art from Rebecca and Jack Drake Collection”, St. Andrews Episcopal Church, Birmingham, AL
2022 “Anyone Can Move A Mountain”, Maus Contemporary, Birmingham, AL
2022 “Digital Combines”, Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2021 “Workings of Media”, Harvestworks Digital Media Art Center, Governor’s Island, New York City, NY
2019 “1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, with 50Golborne Gallery, New York City, NY
2018 “Out of the Whirlwind’s Radiance”, AKAA Fair, with 50Golborne Gallery, Paris, France
2018 “Out of the Whirlwind’s Radiance”, 50Golborne Gallery, London, England
2016 “Disguise: Masks and Global African Art”, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
2015 “Disguise: Masks and Global African Art”, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
2015 “Disguise: Masks and Global African Art”, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
2014 “MORPHOS”, Vortex Immersion Media, Los Angeles, CA
2013 “PLAY.GROUND.BREAK”, Hotel Particulier, New York City, NY
2013 “Harvestworks New Works Resident Open Studio”, New York Electronic Arts Festival, New York City, NY
2012 “YOU ARE HERE”, Kreuzberg Pavillon, Kassel, Germany
2011 "Künstlerischer Großeinsatz", Großeinsatz, Berlin, Germany
2010 "GlogauAIR Open Studios", Glogauer Artist in Residence, Berlin, Germany
2008 “The Vinyl Show”, New Street Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2006 “The Superorganic”, Galerie CcG, Vienna, Austria
2007 “New Portraiture”, Romo Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2006 “Projectorettes”, Basics Festival, Galerie 5020, Salzburg, Austria
2005 “Synthfest”, Transplant Gallery, New York City, NY
Screenings, Lectures & Presentations
2017 “N’CHI”, Curatorial Lab, Negarra A. Kudumu [.com], worldwide/online
2013 “Leaders in Software Art”, presentation at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, New York City, NY
2012 video screening at Brooklyn Electronic Arts Festival, Brooklyn, NY
2012 “Visiting Artist, Jakob Dwight”, New York State Summer School of the Arts at SUNY, Fredonia, NY
2012 "New Multimedia Processes", lecture at Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY
2011 "Black Mirror | The Autonomous Prism", Papillion Art, Los Angeles, CA
2010 “JD Studio Launch”, video screening at White Box, New York City, NY
2009 "Selected Animation Works", GTM Rock Garden, Atlanta, GA
2006 “Survey of New Media Art and Communication”, lecture at Loras College, Dubuque, IA
2006 “Survey of New Media Art and Communication”, lecture at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA
2006 “The Flowers of Air”, European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland
Awards & Residencies
2015 Invited Artist, Pioneer Works Center for Art + Innovation, Brooklyn, NY
2014 Resident Artist, Fulldome Artist in Residence, Vortex Immersion Media, Los Angeles, CA
2012 Resident Artist, New Works Residency, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, NY
2011 Invited Artist, United States Artists, Chicago, IL
2010 Resident Artist, Glogauer Artist in Residence Program, Berlin, Germany
Education
2005 Art Students League of New York, New York City, NY
1997 Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
1996 Florida A & M University, Tallahassee, FL
Bibliography
2023 Barrett, Paul, “Thornton Dial: I, Too, Am Alabama”, December 2021
2022 Stuart, Shauna, “This Show is Long Overdue’: Thornton Dial’s Artistic Legacy on Display in Birmingham”, December
2018 Peggy Cooper Cafritz, “Fired Up! Ready to Go!: Finding Beauty, Demanding Equity: An African American Life in Art, The Collections of Peggy Cooper Cafritz”, February
2018 Kudumu, Negarra, “Luminous Potentialities: Jakob Dwight’s Autonomous Prism”
2016 Sesay, Nadia, “Jakob Dwight’s ‘Autonomous Prism’”, Blanc Modern Africa, September
2016 Eckhardt, Stephanie, "At the Brooklyn Museum, African Masks Take On A Fresh Glow", W Magazine, April
2016 Vikram, Anuradha, "Naked in the Sight of the Object: Masking, Masquerade, and Black Identity, X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly, Summer
2016 Abrahams, Megan, "Disguise: Masks & Global African Art at the Fowler Museum at UCLA", Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art, February
2016 Knight, Christopher, "Identity Transformed in the Fowler's 'Disguise: Masks and Global African Art'", LA Times, January
2016 Ayson, Christina, "Disguise: Masks and Global African Art” at the Fowler Museum, UCLA, Art Radar Journal, January
2015 Jennings, Helen, 'Disguise", Nataal Media, December
2015 Ebony, David, "Multimedia Masquerade: Masks and Disguise in Contemporary Art Interview with Pamela McClusky", Yale Art Books (blog), November
2015 Murakami, Kenta, "Artists of African Descent Don Disguises in the Digital Age", Hyperallergic, September
2015 Ponnekanti, Rosemary, "Seattle Art Museum Opens Disguise: Masks & Global African Art", The News Tribune, July
2015 Miller, Brian, “Put a Mask On It: SAM’s Contemporary Take on Traditional African Art”, Seattle Weekly, July
2015 Sefa-Boakye, Jennifer, "Celebrating 21st Century Masks from Africa and the Diaspora", Okay Africa, June
2015 Frank, Priscilla, "Global African Artists Explore the Meaning of Disguise in the 21st Century", Huffington Post | Arts, June,
2015 Clemans, Gayle, "Grand Illusions: Seattle Art Museum Show Pairs African Masks, Contemporary Art, Seattle Times, June,
2015 McClusky, Pamela Z. & Massaquoi, Erika Dalya, "Disguise: Masks and Global African Art", Yale University Press, June
2014 Onyewuenyi, Ikechukwu. "Interview: Aesthetics & Therapeutics Lab", Cool Hunting, October
2013 Zimmer, Lori, “Jakob Dwight at Hotel Particulier”, Art Nerd: New York, December
2013 Büsch, Thomas, “N’CHI: Visions of a New World”, Interactive Enthusiasts in Art, March
2012 Massara, Kathleen, "Jakob Dwight Creates Art Role-Playing Game With N'CHI", Huffington Post | Arts, April
2011 Onyewuenyi, Ikechukwu, "Jakob Dwight: A Multifaceted Video Artist Explores the Communicative Effects of Light", Cool Hunting, February