CONTEMPORARY ART STOCKROOM Jacob Leary

Jacob Leary is featured in JAHM's latest exhibition Black & White & Red All Over, showing from 28 Feb to 30 May.

Jacob Leary is a multi-disciplinary with a practice spanning a range of mediums including painting, prints, video and installation. His tendency toward the dynamic has fed his preoccupation with assemblage. Creating artworks that operate within a series, Leary allows for a tendency toward change to occur. It is this investigation not only of aesthetically pleasing pattern and systems, but also the theories of philosophers such as Manual DeLanda, which informs how his artworks are executed.

Leary’s works are composed through an intense and laborious process that combines digital drawing with more conventional modes of hand-crafted assemblage and collage. The sculptures he creates are reminiscent of topographic land masses – mountains of geometric forms undulating in a mass of exploding colour. The works start as two dimensional shapes or “territories” as he calls them but grow into worlds based on patterns and algorithmic systems that inform the artistic process of composition.
Excerpt from Something Terrain catalogue essay by Owen Craven, Melbourne-based Senior Curator with UAP

In 2017 Leary was selected to participate in the QANTAS Curates Initiative, with his artwork featuring on the airline’s international Business class amenity kits. In 2016 he exhibited in Brainstorm at the Tasmanian College of the Arts as part of DarkMofo and at Contemporary Art Tasmania. He was a finalist in the Redlands Art Prize and has recently undertaken commissions for Hobart College and MONA FOMA. In 2014, Leary was selected a finalist in the Printmaking category of the City of Hobart Art Prize and in 2015 he was a finalist in the Burnie Print Prize (TAS) and in the Hutchins Art Prize (TAS) for works on paper. In 2012 Jacob completed a Masters of Fine Arts at the Hobart School of Art, creating a multimedia installation exploring the exponential growth of technology in contemporary culture.

Jacob is currently a seasonal staff member at the Hobart School of Art. He has won numerous awards for his work, including the 2012 John Fries Memorial Prize, a national award for emerging visual artists. He has also been the recipient of multiple grants including a Contemporary Art Tasmania Studio in 2012 and an Australia Council grant for emerging artists in 2013. He has been collected by Artbank University of Tasmania, Justin Art House Museum, RACT Collection, Tasmanian Government, llisington collection and Ormond College.