Jacob Blackaller
Jacob Blackaller
Excavation, 2020
Pencil, ink, acrylic and newsprint on canvas
48 x 58 cm
About this Work
In Excavation, the artist contemplates the past existence and future development of a building site, which remains unbeknownst to the viewer. To accompany the piece, the artist wrote the following prose: Walking around a building site, it is difficult to have a sense of what it will one day look like. Where are the edges? Which part will be building, and which will be outside? Is that part staying or going? It can feel like describing the directions to a place without knowing where it is, or trying to read a badly drawn map. It could be a path, but maybe it is an outline. But an outline of what was once there or of what is going to be?
About Jacob Blackaller
Jacob Blackaller is a graduate of Fine Art from Kingston School of Art, and is currently enrolled in the MFA in Sculpture at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, where he received the Felix Slade Scholarship in 2018. For the past year, Blackaller has been the appointed artist in residence at UCL EAST (2019–2020). He has received various other prizes, including the Stanley Picker Travel Grant (2017). Recent exhibitions include at Saatchi Gallery, London, at Stanley Turner Ground, Lewes, and The Take Courage Gallery, London.
Blackaller’s practice consists primarily of painting and sculpture. Using a wide range of materials and making techniques, the artist aims to avoid the constraints of a singular methodology, in order to maintain a level of uncertainty and distance from the work he produces. Blackaller seeks this detachment in questioning unknowings of justifications for things like “Why a metal shaft might have been installed on a train station platform”. These kinds of initial questions and scepticism help to inform his practice, and encourage a narrative that teases out something that may otherwise not be interrogated. His practice can feel like guess work, trial and error or a process of elimination. It is Blackaller’s intention to make mistakes so that he has a problem to solve. His work is often auto-referential, when for example illustrating diagrams of how sculptures may be constructed or assembled, and can be seen as proposals or stages towards something that might never be made.
Education
Slade School of Fine Art, MFA Sculpture - 2018 - 2021
Kingston School of Art, BA Fine Art (First Class Honours) - 2015 - 2018
City College Brighton & Hove, UAL Foundation Diploma in Art & Design - 2014 - 2015
Selected Shows
London Grads Now, Saatchi Gallery, London - 2020
Excavation, Stanley Turner Ground, Lewes - 2020
MA & MFA Interim Show, Slade School of Fine Art, London - 2019
Scene In Situ, The Take Courage Gallery, London - 2019
Kingston BA Fine Art Degree Show, Kingston School of Art - 2018
If Only & Wanting Not So Much, Avionics, Kingston - 2018
Hot Space, Platform Gallery, Kingston - 2018
Kingston BA Fine Art Second Year Show, Kingston School of Art, Kingston - 2017
Unpalletable, Platform Gallery, Kingston - 2017
Kingston BA Fine Art First Year Show, Kingston School of Art, Kingston - 2016
Collection, Apiary Studios, London - 2016
Brighton City College Art and Design Foundation Show, City College Brighton and Hove, Brighton - 2015
Residencies
UCL EAST Artist in Residence, UCL East, LondonAwards - 2019 - 2020:
Felix Slade Scholarship, Slade School of Fine Art - 2018
Stanley Picker Travel Grant, Stanley Picker Gallery - 2017