Cheryl Pelavin Fine Arts is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Agnes Jacobs. Ms Jacobs’ was born in Budapest, Hungary; she studied at the Art Students League and received her BA from Barnard College, Columbia University. She earned her MFA from George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Jacobs lived and worked in DC for most of her adult life and has shown there consistently with over seventeen solo shows to her credit since1976. She now lives with her husband in New York City. We started our association with her in 2003. Since that time I have watched her work constantly change and mutate. In the 1980’s Jacobs did 3-dimensional works both freestanding wood sculpture and work for walls. The use of hard edged shapes, trapezoids, circles, cut out squiggles and abstracted forms translated into her 2 dimensional canvases and works on paper via the use of cut-outs and stencils.

Being close to Agnes Jacobs’ art means one can follow her iconography through each period of her work. It might be more difficult for a newcomer to trace the lineage, but in all of her art there is a strong element of play and linearity, of calligraphy, whether the line is the element in it’s entirety or describing an edge, as it does in her earlier art.

Her new works are like line poems or songs. Each has a slightly different mood, rhythm and construction. She is as fluid with her palette, which covers numerous themes from almost monochromatic to a confetti like association of hues. The lines scramble across the surface of her paper or canvas, get knotted up and then dangle free. Sometimes the brush used is fat and the color is black to create a chunky sharp statement. Strokes form central associations or are blown out to the edges. Always present is the immediacy of her movement and freedom of mark. The images are actually diaries of the artist translated through the discipline of aesthetics.

Regarding her new work the artist says: I started this new body of work laying down lines of liquid color with a sponge brush, thick and thin. As the work progressed the lines became freer and more playful. They swirled and looped around each other creating layers of movement and light. Some of the pieces made me think of light filtering through foliage, thus the reference to forests in some of the titles. Other pieces remind me of webs of rope or strings crisscrossing each other, and again with light filtering through.

The swooping linear movement recalls calligraphy but on a large scale. I became swept away by the sheer freedom and expression of the gesture of painting. I think this new work is the most spontaneous I have done to date. The movement towards spontaneity is very important in Jacob’s art. Her earliest works are assemblages, which she purposely allowed to go out of control and brought back into control using selected elements. She is risking more, flowing instantaneously from mind to heart to hand.

Agnes Jacobs has a rich biography covering numerous group shows, collections, both private and professional and an extensive bibliography. Please contact the gallery for further information.