Sarah Jacobs’ deep-spaced paintings are inspired by the Hellenistic philosophy of Plotinus, who believed that all beings are intrinsically important pieces of a larger whole, like how every jigsaw piece is necessary to create a full image. The deep skies, which represent the world beyond us, are paired with specific foreground imagery (birds, butterflies, etc.) which are depicted with more detail and specificity than their environments, suggesting that we relate to them as individuals. The deep and near are depicted together in overlapping layers that suggest that although we are individual actors playing out our lives, we are part of a larger system which we can only partially understand from our limited vantage points. We, being so much more than the sum of our body parts, can realize that our understandings of our experiences are limited, and this series plays with the endless possibilities that offers.

Jacobs‘ aesthetic visualization of some such possibilities as paintings were inspired by reading about quantum loop theory in the books of Carlo Rovelli, including The Order of Time, and this exhibition’s namesake, Reality is Not What it Seems. In the series multiple versions of the same sky or multiple different skies are depicted within one image, suggesting that multiple understandings of reality could be simultaneously valid.

To create the work in this exhibition Jacobs had painted several preliminary oil paintings of skies. The artist then had those works photographed and the photos were printed on cotton and paper, which she warped, tore, and then photographed once again. She next took the images of the preliminary paintings, the manipulated images on paper and fabric, as well as photos of previously painted skies, and collaged them together digitally in Photoshop – those collages were printed on canvas. Lastly, Jacobs painted more on top of the printed canvases primarily with oil paint and in some cases acrylic and metal leaf.