Featured Artist for March 1999

Featured GiveAway by Jacob Israel Mental Fog 30" x 40" -1998 Oil On Canvas Valued at $1800

Ned Brines Los Alamitos, CA

Mental Fog is an elegant painting that finds its place in the viewer's subconscious. Its subtle dispersions draw you in for a closer look to admire glimmers from crisp lines. It allows you to stand back and wonder if it's all just an illusion. The viewer is thus freed to see this in their own way, freeing their own concepts of light, space and forms. As a title, Mental Fog recognizes that everyone has a mechanism of defense that prevents us from being in touch with our unconscious and spirituality.



MEET THE ARTIST

Along with being an artist, Jacob is also a certified and registered clinical Hypnotherapist in the state of California. Through regression in other’s past lives, Jacob has learned to understand the hidden elements beyond the facade. He enjoys sunsets, backgammon, chess and science programs and/or magazines. His present moments of life are fulfilled with the presence of his supportive wife, Michelle for which he states, "That without her, I would not be able to have the inspiration if it were not for her support, friendship and patience." He would also not want to leave behind his dog named Judy who shows him unconditional love and is beside him no matter the smell of paint or his moods. Peace of mind and tranquility soothe him and he abhors uncertainty, fanaticism, closed mindedness and any religious cult.

Jacob mainly paints with oils on canvas but he also likes to occasionally work on paper, using oils and sometimes acrylics. He is now exhibiting some of his works in galleries in Las Vegas, Nevada as well as Mexico City.

News portrays a simple concept for our modern life in the news. Jacob realizes that our society is allowed to feel what we see, hear, or read in the media. He also feels sad that the worse the news is seems to make it more attractive to follow. He used newspaper on canvas in black and white (ink and paper) and spots of red here and there to add the bloody touch of the news in our environment.
	News, 1988 30" X 22" Oil on Canvas & Newspaper $800

At 18, Jacob went to Israel as a volunteer in a Kibbutz in order to live amongst the great changes in the Middle East. Through this contact with other cultures, he was able to absorb differing points of view specifically concerning the arts. He learned as a student of Kabbalah, which is the ancient Jewish mysticism, that the most striking truth for him is that "Everything is just an illusion and there is no randomness. If we take this as fact, then the perception of our physical world has largely changed and it is difficult for many of us to grasp and accept such ideas."

He envelops the idea that everything in the arts is part of a whole which easily unites people with different religious and political views. This exposure to the Kabbalah was the foundation of his philosophy "that art is the only country that does not have any borders since it goes directly to the human spirit consciously and unconsciously."

Squares with its twelve squared windows represent the magic and symbolism of the number 12. Where time and space is governed by this number. Months, hours, tribes, zodiac signs, and disciples are all counted by twelve. The windows are integrated into the background through the burning contrast of hot and cold colors. It is hard to differentiate which color is the first plane, the red or the blue. This phenomenon is symbolic to when one feels a burning sensation but cannot determine whether the source is hot or cold.

Squares, 1998, 30" x 40" Oil on Canvas, $1500

In 1974, Jacob traveled to Europe and took up residency in Belgium where he started to see the merging of the Old and New worlds at once. Observing and absorbing the different cultures, expressions and ways, he realized that all cultures have one thing in common, "The spirit of freedom of artistic expression in different languages, colors and flavors." He has learned that art is a way for each artist to express themselves in their true form.

This set forth a craving for self-expression within the arts. He traveled to Paris and lived their for two years. During that time, he encountered a variety of different teachers within the arts, one of which was renowned choreographer, Alexandre Witzman. He studied the importance that color and form played in order to create the illusion of reality on stage. Since that time, he has taken on the task of fathoming an illusionary and impossible world through his art.

Illusion is one of Jacob's favorites, and it combines all of his theoretical visions of relativity and "true" reality. In actuality, it depends on what part of the brain decodes the image. And only when the observer's logic reaches the top and gives up, the peaceful and meditative state of the mind connect it to the impossible.
	Illusion, 1998, Oil on Canvas, 36" x 48" $2500

Jacob has always been fascinated with Escher’s work of impossible worlds and has incorporated the dimensional phenomenon while taking it a step further. His work captures an essence of the unconscious while trying to push the limits of visual perception The genial personality that Escher expresses has remained in Jacob's work. The drawings trick our mind because our senses look for logic in all that we see, hear, touch, or smell. What we are actually seeing is a classic example of illusion.

	Geometry Forms represents the key to perception. As much as your mind tries to place everything into logical acceptance in our three dimensional world, the more it is fooled into the abstraction of impossible shapes and spaces. The linear inconsistency almost irritates one's sense of order. Only your imagination provides escape from this abrasion.
Geometry Forms 20" x 24", 1998 Oil on Paper, $600

Jacob is also influenced by Mexican artists such as Leonardo Nierman, known for his ability to play with colors and spaces in imaginary worlds which include universes and genesis of the unknown. He is proud to be a personal friend of Leonardo and his universes. Jacob has also studied color and forms with Eduardo Ballester who has been awarded first place as best innovator in the national contest of watercolors in Mexico City two years in a row.

Genesis is built on the simplicity of the primary colors; red, yellow and blue. Out of these three basic colors, light is born. The colors ooze into a plasma-like transformation showing the journey from nothingness onto the genesis. The creation of light is born out of chaos.
	Genesis, 1998 40" x 30" Oil on Canvas $1500

Jacob’s vast cultural exposure, diversity of teachers and influences have blended into an art form which is truly unique in its essence of the physical challenge and actually frees the mind of dimensional constraints.

As an adult, the brain is trained to look for a logic and understandable information though the senses. If the senses do not respond, then we tend to discard it, accept it or either try to find a logical response to find an answer. Among some of famous minds like Einstein, he showed us that all is relative but the speed of light. This statement has remained with Jacob since he encountered it. As a child, this made him think and wonder. Now, whether you accept it or not, it opens the human mind to wonders and unknown worlds.

While Jacob has had several shows in Mexico, he is proud to have Art Encounter in Las Vegas representing and introducing his work to American culture.

	Relativity brings to my mind the genius of Albert Einstein, where the concept is not as easy to grasp in a world dominated by our 5 senses. When examining the work, you will find the odd perspective of two bodies (cross and quadrate). The question it poses is which of these two bodies is the one that your senses accepts as truth when comparing to the other.
Relativity, 1998 Oil On Paper 30" x 22", $900

Contact the Artist

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ARTIST STATEMENT

What I try to give the viewer of my work, is the opportunity to express and find, through each individual point of view, what the unconscious reveals and wants to find. It is just like playing as children when our sense of fantasy and surprise were available at anytime. How easy it was to see faces, animals, and forms in a simple cloud. Then we start to grow and it seems that playing with those tools are left abandoned in a corner of our memory and sometimes forbidden or even daring to bring them back to our adult and busy lives. In my work, I leave to each observer to find with their own tools, the subject that their unconscious finds freely on a canvas with colors. Some may see something that no one else may see. While others share their discoveries. Basically the subject of the work is left to each one of us. ~ Jacob Israel