JACOB EUGENE CORNELIUS

            As an artist I’m constantly exploring the media that I utilize in order to elevate the creation process. My compositions are varied in the amount of control I assert over the media of drawing. Some works employ a strict application of graphite and colored pencil, while others practice the looser medium of ink. . Observing the apparent sentience of the material as it is arranged into a composition has been my focus. I have developed a number of compositions by giving the medium its own agency. Investigating the nature of the material used to create art, as well as exploring its ability of manipulating itself has held my fascination. Many of my works deal with imagined and distorted subjects of weird fantasy, incorporating either humor or visceral physicality

Recently I have sought to capture the consciousness of my media through documenting my processes. During the conception of a composition, I photograph the ink as it meanders across the foundation of water I place. The once inert and inanimate ink is granted with mobility once it comes into contact with the water, asserting itself across the composition in a similar fashion to the active mark making of an artist. Both the documentation and finalized compositions are presented on equal footing to grant the procedure with the same reverence as the end product. I push the interplay between both compositions by recording the wet composition at a different angle and scale in order to establish the process as a separate entity. Currently the works feature dissection pins to enhance their sentience, suggesting an anatomical structure to the amorphous forms. The formation of these figures are made in reference to a false skeletal structure, assembled from collected animal teeth. It is my intention that, by modeling the compositions after a mock bone structure, they will be brought closer to presenting the media as a living subject, while still maintaining its distinct identity from a preexisting anatomical study. Through my methodology, I seek to elevate the creation process and cultivate a series that regards the material as a zoetic personality.