Jacob Stillman

Brooklyn-based Jacob Stillman (StillmanVisual) is a young self-taught 3D artist and motion designer whose strongly emotional connection with nature and forms of romantic solitude repeatedly finds expression in his art. Recurring motifs in his work include water, rocks, forest, coloured vegetation, and in particular the notion of the subject within a naturalistically and impressionistically transformed space.

The fluid transformation of the natural into various forms of the fantastical testifies to a highly capable form of motif transfer that recalls surrealist art. The generative movement in the image, combined with the careful choice of acoustic accompaniment, produces an immersive experience that produces a narrative sequence even as it remains anchored in meditative contemplation.

In Synapses, for instance, the viewer is confronted by the never-ending vertical movement of a green enchanted jungle with exotic flowers growing within seconds from spiral, moss-covered branches. All of this contrasts with magnificent butterflies softly fluttering their wings in a never-ending movement through the thicket and into the light. We feel as if we are wandering forever into this mysterious forest filled with moss, reflected light, mushrooms and pulsating life.

Similarly, the abstract spiral of colours turning on its own axis in Midday Dreams evokes material associations as well. Like a finely etched sandstone formation that has been transferred onto a thin silk fabric, the band of colours glides and changes in space, turning on its axis with immense flexibility and colourfulness. As a self-sufficient, unknown material, this band oscillates between a highly artificial and natural form whose hallucinatory circling ceaselessly evokes new associations, analogies and interpretations.    

Stephan Reisner