J a c o b   F o r a n

ESSENCE

Opening 4/17/14

Seattle Design Center, Suite 182

5:30-9:00pm

When one visits a museum to look at ancient statuary, we are often searching for what a culture meant or wanted to be remembered for.  The way that sculptors treated the figure was meant to give a key to the religious, political or aesthetic ideals of whoever could afford to pay the artist.  Jacob Foran’s recent body of work, ESSENCE, alludes to those past cultures and monuments.  The faded and stoic figures suggest something that has been lost; a vague remembrance of something with no particular dogma attached.  ‘Remnant’ is a word that he uses.  Torn from their context, these remnants become a sort of blank screen to impose ideas of meaning and purpose onto.  They raise more questions than they answer.  Their power lies in that function.