CONTEMPORARY ART STOCKROOM Jacob Leary

Jacob Leary PhD is a multi-disciplinary artist working in installation, video, sculpture, painting, and print. His work places an emphasis on the aesthetic realm of appearances, systems of classification, and how art-objects may be a vehicle to reveal ontological insights. He is interested in the essential existence of an artwork as an object and explores dynamics such as excess and density, pattern and growth, and the shifting nature of representation.

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

A differing strategy dives into the ineffable spread of possible worlds. When each glittering shard sits in an expanded juxtaposition of the potency of poetic resonance: when meaning cascades from the work, unexhausted, context exploding with each viewing. What Jacob Leary gestures towards here is not potential but potentials: an archive of possible futures, all informing one another.
Excerpt from essay by Andrew Harper, 2021

NOW AVAILABLE
Bubblegum Dystopia as wallpaper art

Liquid Portals

12.35 minute 2 channel video by Jacob Leary and Ariel Ruby, ed of 3 $4,400 AUD.

ARTIST PROFILE:
Jacob Leary holds a PhD and Master of Fine Arts from Hobart School of Art, where he is currently a seasonal staff member. Over his career, his work has been featured in several high-profile exhibitions and initiatives including at the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery in 2013 as part of their Emerging Artists Program. In 2016, his work was showcased at DarkMofo in conjunction with the Tasmanian College of the Arts, and in 2017, his art was featured on QANTAS's international Business Class amenity kits through the QANTAS Curates Initiative. More recently, he participated in Hobart Current: Liberty 2020, in collaboration with the City of Hobart and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. In June 2022, he curated Futures, presented by DarkMofo and Good Grief Studio, which explored the intersection of digital and real-world experiences.

Leary has received numerous awards and grants, including the John Fries Memorial Prize (2012), the Contemporary Art Tasmania Studio Grant (2012), and an Australia Council Grant for Emerging Artists (2013). He has also been a finalist in various prestigious art prizes, such as the Glover Prize (2018), the Hutchins Art Prize for Works on Paper (2018), the Redlands Art Prize (2016), and the City of Hobart Prize for Printmaking (2014). Additionally, he has completed commissions for Hobart College, MONA FOMA, and the Moonah Arts Centre. His work is held in the collections of Artbank, University of Tasmania, Justin Art House Museum, RACT Collection, Tasmanian Government, llisington Collection and Ormond College.

LEARY'S PUBLIC ART PROJECTS

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Media Highlights

Chiral Bloom (Silver B) 2026
mixed media
76cm x 70cm x 70cm
$5,000 AUD

Chiral Bloom (Silver A) 2026
mixed media
52cm x 25cm x 25cm
$3,000 AUD

Abiogenesis (Glass A) 2026
mixed media
61cm x 27cm x 21cm
$5,000 AUD

Abiogenesis (Glass B) 2026
mixed media
29cm x 18cm x 18cm
$2,000 AUD

Intrusive Metrics (b) 2025
stacked paper cuts, framed with art glass
55cm x 43cm x 6.5cm
$5,700 AUD

Intrusive Metrics (d) 2025
stacked paper cuts framed with art glass
55cm x 43cm x 6.5cm
$5,700 AUD

Intrusive Metrics (a) 2025
stacked paper cuts framed with art glass
55cm x 43cm x 6.5cm
$5,700 AUD

Enchanted Uncertainty 2023
mixed media
88cm x 88cm x 34cm In Artist's Studio
$7,000 AUD

Red Light 2023
mixed media
88cm x 59cm x 26cm
$5,500 AUD

Hypertelic Process (A) 2024
mixed media
73cm x 47cm x 50cm In artist's studio
$5,000 AUD

Pink 2023
mixed media
60cm x 60cm
$4,500 AUD

Enter 2023
mixed media
60cm x 60cm
$4,500 AUD

Hauntology 15:30 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Hauntology 8:30 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Hauntology 20:00 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Hauntology 5:00 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Hauntology 2:00 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Hauntology 15:00 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Hauntology 16:30 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Hauntology 18:30 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Hauntology 4:30 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Hauntology 14:30 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Hauntology 2:30 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Hauntology 3:30 - The past is in the present 2024
mixed media
32cm x 32cm
$2,200 AUD

Time in the Layers - 05:00 2024
stacked paper cuts
31cm x 31cm
$1,800 AUD

Time in the Layers - 11:00 2024
stacked paper cuts
31cm x 31cm
$1,800 AUD

Time in the Layers - 12:00 2024
stacked paper cuts
31cm x 31cm
$1,800 AUD

Time in the Layers - 07:00 2024
stacked paper cuts
31cm x 31cm
$1,800 AUD

Time in the Layers - 08:00 2024
stacked paper cuts
31cm x 31cm
$1,800 AUD

Time in the Layers - 02:00 2024
stacked paper cuts
31cm x 31cm
$1,800 AUD

Globbbb 2024
cut paper
20cm x 20cm x 5cm
$950 AUD

Bubblegum Dystopia -wallpaper 2019
Phototex removable wallpaper
211cm x 833cm

Bubblegum Dystopia (A) 2019
Digital giclee
100cm x 197cm full size of diptych 100 x 394cm, unframed ed 5 - PRICED FOR THE PAIR
$8,500 AUD

Bubblegum Dystopia (B) 2019
Digital giclee
100cm x 197cm full size of diptych 100 x 394cm, unframed ed 5 - PRICED FOR THE PAIR
$8,500 AUD

Stuff in Nature, Nature in Stuff 2018
digital print, unframed
100cm x 100cm ed of 5
$1,500 AUD

The Cutest Flood 2015
archival print on photographic paper
100cm x 80cm , edition of 3, framed, In Artist's Studio
$2,500 AUD

Dreams of Day 2013
Giclee print, framed 3 editions of 2 remaining
80cm x 100cm In artist's studio
$2,500 AUD

Laughter of the Height 2012
Giclee print, framed 3 editions of 5 remaining
100cm x 80cm
In Artist's Studio

Handsome Thing 2012
Giclee print, framed 2 editions of 5 remaining
125cm x 100cm unframed at FLG
$3,500 AUD