ARTIST’S STATEMENT

My childhood home was built roughly a century before my family moved into it, and stands in a now-impoverished town in Louisiana. As the structure of our household degraded and became more turbulent, so did the dwelling. Broken windows, leaking and collapsing sections of the roof, and plants invading cracks in the architecture became common. They reflected a history of inherited and perpetuated abuse in the home. While the memories of the space and its condition are clear to me, many of the experiences within it are incomplete. 

My research focuses on this predicament and the feelings of shame, inadequacy, and frustration associated with recalling the past. It does so through installations comprising a family of familiar yet aged objects. Through material explorations involving cremation, rusting, and impermanent installations, an opportunity to nurture objects through process arts and conservatorship occurs. By populating a near facsimile of a space–which exists only in memories—with these items indicative of perpetuated grief and neglect, the work attempts to recall moments of tenderness buried within a mass of forgotten memories.

BIO

Jacob Taylor Gibson is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and arts administrator based in Dallas, TX whose research has been exhibited, collected, and published internationally. Since earning his MFA from the University of North Texas in 2023, Taylor has been appointed as the Manager of Programming for The Cedars Union, a nonprofit arts incubator in Dallas, TX. Here, he leads their educational programming and serves as the liaison to their membership and residency program.

In addition, Taylor has recently led educational programming and workshops at North Texas institutions, the Dallas Museum of Art, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Kimbell Art Museum. Outside of DFW, Taylor continues to exhibit his research through recent national group and solo exhibitions and leads workshops at notable institutions such as Haystack Mountain School of Craft. Currently, he serves on the 2024-2026 board of the MidAmerica Print Council, a nationwide printmaking nonprofit and conference.

Photo credit: Mario Zie