Artist Bios

Jacob

Jacob Browning Pet is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Chicago, making work in needle felted fiber sculpture and transmission arts. His work is interested in communication, belief, and the phenomenon of hypnosis - its relationship to art-making and art interaction. Through the lens of the hypnotic phenomena, Jacob’s work investigates the point where consciousness and aesthetic sense-making intersect. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Chicago.

Caleb

CM (Caleb) Clemente is a visual artist based in Chicago, IL, primarily working in drawing and sculpture. These concrete media are used to investigate the relationship between the tangible and the transcendent, seeking to discern the importance of the corporeal body within concentration and expand the definition of sacred spaces. With that throughline, Clemente expands his reach to themes of care/disgust, lament/memorial, and surrender/desire. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Chicago.

• Photographs (tintypes) were taken by show co-ordinator and artist Max Li in the First Art Space church studios
• Artist Bios (text) were printed and displayed at the door to the exhibit above show materials (show layout and artist statement papers)

Statements

Jacob

Where am I inside of my body?

How much of me can be taken? How many senses taken? How many layers peeled?

Before I split? Before I die?

And if my mind is sick? If my mind is corrupted? Do I leave it behind?

Do I go to death? Which part goes to death? How much of me?

Am I pickled? What is time to me? When do I become? •
What is my belief? What is my law? What is their union? What is my union? Where does it cross my flesh?

How deep does it go? Does it make me heavy?

Too heavy to carry myself?

•

Can I ever be understood? Truly understood? Truly understood?

Which part of me is listened to? Where inside my body?
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“anxiety is the dizziness of freedom” - søren kierkegaard

“assume = ass u / me ?” - unknown

Jacob Pet

Caleb

Lament is an attack on language. A cyclical accusation of speech and action, whose verdict can only be found within itself. Even God themself is merely a witness to the lament, not a judge. It asks for nothing more than its own self.

Job’s body is the record of pain. Clay is the skin of man; compacted ashes and dust. The tablets are built up only to be picked away in obsession.

“Skin is the boundary between inner and outer, the way in which internal suffering can be projected externally.1” The articulation of pain is the words of lament, Job must suffer to make his cries coherent. He crumbles under its weight.

“Mathematical representation of lamentation as the passage of a function through the point of zero. Annihilation: X × 0 = 0.2”

CM Clemente