Jay Isaac

Jay Isaac
Born 1975
Canada
Nationality Canadian
Known for painting, drawing, collage, sculpture

Jay Isaac was born in 1975 in New Brunswick, Canada. He is an artist currently based in Toronto and shows his work internationally. He is known primarily for his painting, but has experimented as a performance artist,[1] a musician collaborating with Lorenz Peter in Bay of Creatures,[2] and he was also founder, editor, publisher and designer of Hunter and Cook magazine.[3]

Education

Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, BC, 1997
Cardiff School of Art and Design, Cardiff, Wales, UK, 1996

Exhibitions

Important solo exhibitions include shows in 2014 and 2012 at Monte Clark Gallery, in 2005 at CUE art foundation and in 2002 at Mercer Union. He has participated in many group exhibitions, notably showing at the The Beaverbrook Art Gallery in 2014, the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver) in 2010, the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in 2007, White Columns, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in 2006, The Power Plant in 2004, and at the Bologna Gallery of Modern Art in 2002.

Work

Isaac identifies himself as an enthusiast of visual stimulus, and believes painting remains a good forum to exercise this proclivity. He complicates his task, however, by making works that delve into areas normally shunned by the dictates of good taste – that moving target of aesthetic value that the institution of art works constantly to redefine. Because good paintings are not good enough and bad paintings are too obvious, he endeavours to explore the liminal space in between.[4]

For the 2005 show Jay Isaac at the CUE Art Foundation, curator Xandra Eden writes, "It has been suggested that patronage is the primary focus for the current generation of artists - that artists are more interested in a career built by getting a show at a successful commercial gallery than experimenting with new art forms. Combine this notion with Jane Jacobs's argument in Dark Age Ahead that accreditation has become more valued than knowledge in many professions, and it would seem a reconsideration of the social context for art production today is fairly pressing. Cut with a bit of surreal comedy, Isaac's exhibition at CUE Art Foundation places issues of class and taste improbably, expectantly, inquisitively back on the table while casting a sideways glance at the circumstance of artists living and working today."[5]

Adam Lauder writes that The Zone of No Ideas in 2010 "presented an ambitious suite of 12 new paintings, and dared to pursue a relentlessly "non-ceptual" set of painterly problems in a moment dominated by linear, neo-conceptual logic. According to the artist, his newly abstract approach and enlarged scale, is "the natural evolution after reaching the limits of object making." That evolution began in 2006 with a period of reinvention which saw the artist immerse himself in the present tense of observation while painting the New Brunswick landscape."[6]

In 2014's show The Sponges, Isaac’s attempt is to make paintings autonomously visual and fully self-referential, outside of art history. The works become testaments to the failure of this effort and a self-acknowledged critique of the artist’s leanings. The works relate to Yves Klein's use of sponges as a painting tool and his interest in "nothingness" and aesthetic "badness". They also relate to process-based surrealism, making use of free association and intuitive assembly. Isaac’s sponges can be seen metaphorically as the surrealistic interest in the subconscious mind, utilizing it for artistic possibilities.[7] "The materials are very natural, and I’m always thinking about the dynamics between things," remarks Isaac regarding his unique use of sand and chalk within the paint. "Acrylic is very plastic, but chalk and sand are very natural. I’m always looking for dynamics, contradictions, connections."[8]

Brad Phillips (artist) writes "Isaac has become very adept at making work that both entices and upsets the viewer. Whether it's through coloration or awkward composition, there is a constant tension between a promise of beauty, and then the deprivation of typical beautiful presentation."[9]

Selected Works

Public Collections

Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, ON
Glenbow Museum, Calgary
Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, ON
Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, Toronto
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON
Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound, ON
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg MB

Selected Publications

Off the Grid, Abstract Painting in New Brunswick, 2014, Beaverbrook Art Gallery
Fantasy Art Now, 2014, ed. Jay Isaac & Sebastian Frye, Swimmer's Group, ISBN 978-0-9938723-3-4
60 Painters, 2012
Triumphant Carrot: The Persistence of Still Life, 2010, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver
Hunter and Cook, 2008-2011, periodical, issues #01-10, Jay Isaac and Tony Romano
Carte Blanche, Vol. 2: Painting, 2008, Magenta Foundation
Jay Isaac, 2005, Cue Foundation, NY
Officina America, 2002, Museum of Modern Art, Bologna, Italy
Selling Out and Buying In, 2002, BizArt, Shanghai

References

  1. ↑ http://canadianart.ca/features/2013/08/23/the-new-old-abstraction/
  2. ↑ http://lorenzpeter.blogspot.ca/2012_03_01_archive.html
  3. ↑ https://ourfaves.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/qa-toronto-artist-jay-isaac-on-the-state-of-art-in-the-city/
  4. ↑ "The Matlock Juxtapose," Mercer Union brochure text, "Confusion is Fresh," Rosemary Heather, 2002
  5. ↑ Jay Isaac, 2005, Cue Art Foundation, 2013.069
  6. ↑ http://canadianart.ca/reviews/2010/04/22/jay-isaac/ Jay Isaac: Think Tanked, Adam Lauder, 2010
  7. ↑ http://www.therustytoque.com/art-portfolio-jay-isaac.html
  8. ↑ http://montecristomagazine.com/arts/jay-isaacs-the-sponges
  9. ↑ http://www.artslant.com/ew/articles/show/39668

External links