hedwige jacobs

Moving Boxes

Moving Boxes, Any Tish Gallery, Houston, TX, USA, October 25 - December 28, 2024

Anya Tish Gallery is thrilled to present Moving Boxes, the second solo exhibition by Dutch American artist Hedwige Jacobs. This highly anticipated show brings together a new collection of whimsical, interactive animations, intricate drawings, and an immersive installation. This latest body of work expands on the artist’s ongoing investigation of isolation and togetherness and is inspired by her time living in Indonesia, particularly the overwhelming abundance of delivery boxes. Jacobs’ artwork is marked by meticulous attention to detail, often employing simple forms and repetition to create works that are both visually compelling and deeply introspective. Jacobs’ work has been praised for its minimalist beauty and profound exploration of human community, where silence and noise coexist, and individuality is constantly negotiated within the collective experience. Through new relatable and engaging artworks, Jacobs continues to skillfully portray the subtleties of the human experience, inviting viewers to explore the complexities of social interaction and personal space.

From the Artist: “I’m drawn to everything paper, especially cardboard boxes, and I want to draw on them. The intimate act of sending physical letters is slowly disappearing, yet the number of packages and boxes being sent is increasing. While living in Indonesia, I was confronted by the widespread use of paper boxes in everyday consumption. Everything is boxed and wrapped, which leads to a lot of waste. I began collecting boxes that caught my eye—those with unique colors, designs, or layouts. Boxes have a mostly practical purpose: protecting, moving, shipping, collecting, and so on. But they also have symbolic meaning. Often, I find the boxes more intriguing and interesting than the contents they carry. I’m drawn to being sustainable in the use of my materials, upcycling and minimizing environmental impact. I’ve drawn on numerous collected boxes, creating micro worlds that come alive for a few seconds.”

About the Artist: Hedwige Jacobs (b. 1971, Singapore) is a Dutch American artist, temporarily based in Singapore. She holds a BFA from the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, Netherlands (1994), and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2004). Her work has been shown at Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, Houston, TX; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Women & Their Work, Austin, TX; ISA Art Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia; Box 13 ArtSpace, Houston, TX; Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, TX; DiverseWorks, Houston, TX; Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX; the Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Drawing Center in New York, NY; Friedman Benda, New York, NY; Red Dot Design Museum, Singapore; DAiS at Galeri Utama, Singapore; ION Art Gallery in Singapore. Her work can be found in numerous museum and private, and corporate collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; The Netherlands Embassy, Singapore; Ernst & Young, London, England; VSB, The Hague, Netherlands. Jacobs' work was part of a public art installation at The Discovery Green Conservancy in Houston in 2020, and it was featured in CURRENTS New Media, Santa Fe, in 2022.

Photo courtesy of the artist

Inside of Envelopes

The Inside of Envelopes, Art League, Houston, TX, USA, December 16, 2022 - February 11, 2023

Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present The Inside of Envelopes, an exhibition by artist Hedwige Jacobs. The Inside of Envelopes is a site-specific installation featuring drawing and animation. Jacobs’ work explores how we live and interact as a society, capturing the collective experiences of isolation, inertia, and desperation that are especially prevalent in this contemporary moment marked by the Covid pandemic and struggles for social change occurring globally.

So-called security envelopes are printed on their interiors with patterns that make it difficult to discern their contents when sealed, helping to keep items like checks or contracts more secure during their transit in the postal system. For this exhibition, the artist has created an installation of collected envelopes which densely cover the walls of the gallery. Jacobs uses these envelopes as her primary material, modifying each envelope with drawn figures, patterns, and abstract forms. She then brings them together in organic groupings on the gallery walls. The installation will also feature Jacobs’ animation where she brings individual envelopes to life, each of them hand drawn in multiple frames.

The frequency of receiving envelopes by mail is declining, and personal mail is even more rare in this digital era. Jacobs invites viewers to consider the ways in which we communicate, how that has changed over recent years, and how we would like to shape that communication in the future. Since 2020, with the combined effects of the pandemic and movements for social change globally, points of connection between individuals feel increasingly precious and simultaneously harder to maintain. The artist reflects on these ties and ponders how long physical mail will continue to be a part of these exchanges.

Hedwige Jacobs is a Singapore-born Dutch artist. She is a Houston-based artist that currently lives and works in Jakarta, Indonesia. She holds a BFA from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in The Netherlands and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Selected shows include: Moody Center for the Arts, Houston; Anya Tish Gallery, Houston; Women & Their Work, Austin; Lawndale Art Center, Houston; Box 13 Artspace, Houston; The Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo; Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hague; Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Blaffer Art Museum, Houston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Drawing Center, New York City; Friedman Benda, New York City; and the Red Dot Design Museum in Singapore. Her work is included in private, corporate, and museum collections.

Curated by Bridget Bray
Photo courtesy of the artist

Art League Houston, On View
Glasstire Top 5 Exhibits in Texas
Article by The Great God Pan is Dead - Junk Mail as Art

Personal Space

Rice Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, TX, USA, August 22, 2022 - August 25, 2023

The Moody celebrated the start of the 22-23 academic year with the debut of three new temporary, public murals installed on the exterior of Rice's Provisional Campus Facilities. Artists Robert Hodge, Hedwige Jacobs, and Royal Sumikat were commissioned by the Moody to create large-scale works that speak to ways we share and reclaim space, as well as connect as a community. These works join GONZO247, Rice Community Mural (2020), and will be on view through August 25, 2023.

Hedwige Jacobs, Personal Space, 2022 From the series Tiny Drawings, pen and ink on paper Commission, the Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University

Hedwige Jacobs creates drawings and video installations based on detailed observations of everyday life. Jacobs investigates how humans interact with each other and with the environments they inhabit, then renders these observations in a humorous way. The small, silhouetted figures are drawn in black, blue, and red, inspired by the colors of a ballpoint pen. By focusing on the figures alone, without spatial context, Jacobs depicts our social behaviors in various postures.

The figures in Personal Space are from the artist’s Tiny Drawings series. In Personal Space, the thirteen still figures, painted onto the surface, interact with various groups of animated figures projected onto the tent at night. At sunset, the mural comes to life with approximately 150 drawn figures, each of them animated to individually walk, jump, push a stroller, walk their dogs, practice yoga, jump rope, and more. The projected figures never walk the same path twice, as the routes are randomly generated by a computer. The overall image conveys the feeling of a busy beehive with its boisterous activity, while each being follows a predetermined path. The artist explains that “overall, the composition reflects the unexpected ways we move around and about, and how we try to respect each other’s personal space in a public setting.”

About the artist: Hedwige Jacobs (b. 1971, Singapore) is a Dutch artist, based in Houston. She holds a BFA from the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, Netherlands (1994), and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2004). Her work has been shown at Women & Their Work, Austin, TX; Box 13 ArtSpace, DiverseWorks, Lawndale Art Center, and Sawyer Yards in Houston, TX; the Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX; and The Drawing Center in New York, NY; DAiS at Galeri Utama and ION Art Gallery in Singapore. Her work is in museums, and private and corporate collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX; The Netherlands Embassy in Singapore; Ernst & Young; and VSB in The Hague, Netherlands. Jacobs's work was part of a public art installation at The Discovery Green Conservancy in Houston in 2020, and it was featured in CURRENTS New Media, Santa Fe, in 2022.

Curated by Frauke Josenhans
Photo by Allyson Huntsman

Press release by Rice Moody Center for the Arts

Come Alive for a Few Seconds

Anya Tish Gallery. Houston, TX, USA, November 20 - January 16, 2021

Anya Tish Gallery is thrilled to announce Come Alive for a Few Seconds, the gallery’s inaugural exhibition of artist, Hedwige Jacobs. “Everything I do starts from a drawing” says her latest body of work, she creates enchanting animations derived from her drawings, where silhouettes of human figures ...”come alive for a few seconds”.

In a simple black and white palette of Jacob’s drawings, animation and video installations, figures scurry about like tiny ants and reconfigure themselves in endless variations drawn from everyday interactions. The artist is interested in the way the characters respond to one another and how they exist in the world. She seems both overwhelmed as well as inspired by the vastness of humanity and says, “It’s about isolation. We’re all alone, but we’re all together”.

Jacobs voices: “My drawings are made with simple materials (pencils, pens and markers on paper) and investigate how we live and interact as a society. In all of my drawings, I draw upon a lexicon of imagery that I have been developing over the past years...The works are imbued with lively human interaction and with environments that are suggestive of an event or place, yet these are left as starting points, fragmented moments in an unending narrative.”

As a part of her exhibition, Jacobs created an intimate installation covering domestic furniture—rocking chairs, television, curtains, lamps, side tables, slippers—in a black and white, hand-drawn, woven pattern. The imperfectly drawn weaves wander and meander across surfaces, unconsciously creating visually dynamic abstract and organic forms. "It's like a path", Jacobs says of her affinity for the woven pattern and describes the objects as "ingredients for a homey feeling". With these obsessive drawings, she is touching on the overabundance of choices and obsessiveness of our lives as consumers.

Hedwige Jacobs is a Dutch artist, born in Singapore, who currently lives and works in Houston, TX. She holds a BFA from the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, Netherlands, and an MFA from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA. Jacobs’ work has been shown at Women & Their Work, Austin, TX; Box 13 ArtSpace, DiverseWorks, Lawndale Art Center, and Sawyer Yards in Houston, TX; the Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX; Friedman Benda Gallery and The Drawing Center in New York, NY; DAiS at Galeri Utama and ION Art Gallery in Singapore. Additionally, her work can be found in museums, private and corporate collections such as: Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX; The Netherlands Embassy in Singapore; Ernst & Young and VSB in The Hague, The Netherlands, and Wellington Management, Boston, MA. Recently, she was a part of a public art installation at The Discovery Green Conservancy in Houston, TX.

Article by Chris Becker for Houston CityBook
Glasstire Five-minute tours: Hedwige Jacobs at Anya Tish Gallery, Houston
Article by Molly Glentzer for the Houston Chronicle

If I Could I Would Cover Everything With My Drawings

Women & Their Work, Austin, TX, USA, January 19 - February 28, 2019

“Everything I do starts from a drawing” says Hedwige Jacobs. In her newest body of work, Jacobs presents a series of stations, each a separate work, and each emerging from her drawing practice. For Jacobs, drawing is at once an honest and direct mode of communication and a way of making sense of the world.

In her Corner Room installation, Jacobs covers domestic furniture—rocking chairs, throw rugs, television, curtains, lamps, side tables—in a black and white, hand-drawn, woven pattern. The weaving starts at one point on the object, encapsulating it and ending with a knot, which allows the weave to suggest new visual relationships and perhaps a cognitive dissonance for her viewer. With these obsessive drawings, she is touching on the overabundance of choices and obsessiveness of our lives as consumers. These imperfect weaves wander and meander across surfaces, leaving the viewer off-balance and in an ambiguous, yet familiar, space.

For The inside of envelopes, Jacobs includes a series of drawings made on the insides of envelopes she's collected for over a decade. These drawings demonstrate her wide lexicon of imagery as a draftsperson: they form a personal language that is continuously growing and evolving, what she calls her "alphabet," or pattern language, which includes figures, homes, cut patterns, and woven designs.

In graduate school, Jacobs began animating her drawings, bringing them to life for a few seconds. These drawings are a fragment of a larger, open-ended narrative, or a moment in time. She is fascinated by how people behave in public spaces and relate to each other, unconsciously creating visually dynamic abstract and organic forms. In her interactive video installation based on the Tiny drawings series, the viewer will be able to participate in the projection, sharing space with the drawn figures and other viewers.

If I could, I would cover everything with my drawings, Hedwige Jacobs invites viewers into an almost meditative state of observation, finding pleasure in unexpected encounters unassuming materials, and common places. In her drawn surfaces, video installation, and cut patterns, figures move about, hover on the edge of the impossible, and reconfigure themselves in endless variations drawn from everyday interactions.

Art Talk
Review by Tatiana Ryckman on Glasstire
Review by Annelyse Gelman for Sightlines Magazine

The BIG Show

Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX, USA, September 15 - November 11, 2018

Peeking Inside! Sharing Space? The Space Within

BOX 13 ArtSpace, Houston, TX, USA, May 26 - July 21, 2018

AMoA Biennial 600: ARCHITECTURE

Amarillo Museum of Art, 2200 S. Van Buren Street, Amarillo, TX, USA, July 14 - October 1, 2017

Drawn To The Inside

Tank Space, 1824 Spring Street, Houston, TX, USA, March 11 - May 6, 2017

The BIG Show

Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX, USA, July 22 - August 27, 2016

SITE Houston 2015

Site specific installation exhibition inside the Silos at Sawyer Yards November 6, 2015 - January 30, 2016 Reviews in the Houston Chronicle (Jan 20), Houston Chronicle (Nov 5), Houston Press and The Leader

Apocryphal Times

Friedman Benda Gallery, New York, USA, October 30 - December 20, 2014

New York, NY -- Apocryphal Times is an exhibition that presents the work of eleven international artists who grapple with the ultimate-elusive concept of time. Striving to grasp time’s essence, these artists were invited to reflect on traditional temporal notions and to create narratives that defy, fictionalize, or capture ‘time’ as we know it. Organized by Thorsten Albertz, gallery director at Friedman Benda, and artist Tamara Kostianovsky, the exhibition will be on view from October 30 through December 13, 2014.

Through sculptures, performative works, installations, and drawings, the artists in the exhibition demonstrate a common preoccupation with clocks, memory, ruins, the aging body, and anxiety about the future. Informed by the power of history, myths, scientific theories, and personal experiences, the selection of works ultimately challenge the idea that ‘time’ is what keeps everything from happening at once.

Literal attempts to mark the passage of time are seen in Aili Schmeltz’s meticulous “hour glass” drawings, where charcoal lines intermittently mark and discount time, and with Jessica Lagunas’s presentation, where her own greying hair is incorporated yearly into discrete works, creating an ongoing personal calendar of ageing.

Reflections of the past figure prominently in the show as a number of artists delve into the collective or personal histories to re-interpret, dispel, or propose new constructs; Cesar Cornejo's elongated skulls made out of tiny bricks simultaneously refer to the sculls of pre- Columbian nobility of the Paracas Culture of Ancient Peru and to the construction materials of shanty-towns that surround Peru's capital today in Lima. His work addresses social issues and time as a continuum where parallel realities coexist.

Tamara Kostianovsky is inspired by the anthropomorphic myths of Mother Earth in South America; her world maps made of dehydrated meat integrate the body with the land in works that reflect on the history of colonization, displacement, and migration. Valerie Hegarty's recreation of her parents’ room captures the vanishing memories of her childhood, translating feelings of remembrance and loss into extant reality.

Julien Salaud creates a "Grotte Stellaire;” a dark dome within which he draws images reminiscent of Paleolithic Cave Paintings with cotton threads illuminated by black light. By doing so, he brings together the cosmological, the animistic, and the religious in a mysterious work that makes us think of the role of magic as a way that early humans ordered their world. In 2012, a similar work was presented at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France.

Conceptual constructs of time, or time in our consciousness, are explored by a final group of artists; Alaskan-born Mark Lawrence Stafford uses common construction materials to explore the effects of time and consciousness on the landscape. Through images of glaciers, mountains and ocean waves, he conjures patterns that lie between consciousness and cosmos, while reclaiming the notion of the “American sublime.” Syrian-born artist Diana Al-Hadid intervenes on a gallery wall - using gypsum and her signature “frozen drips” to create a site- specific work suspended between decay and construction, which defies gravity and time as it appears to float in space.

Hedwige Jacobs makes drawings that capture the collective experiences of isolation, inertia, and desperation prevalent in modern societies. The artist presents a group of drawings that mirror our existence while striving to find the essence of a wider temporal and spatial awareness in our ordinary lives.

Leaps into the realm of the unknown include New York-based Lars Fisk's futuristic sculptures. Imagining a future for common objects while blending transportation concerns with cosmologies, Fisk shows a vehicle conflated into a ball – both strangely familiar and completely alien. The digital prints of Spanish artist Juanli Carrion postulate further on peripatetic projections of time with thousands of layered images of ‘ruins’, generated by a computer.

The Intuitionist

The Drawing Center, New York, USA, July 11 - August 24, 2014

100th Feature Exhibition A5 & Fred Lives Here/ Woven Chair

Affordable Art Fair, Singapore, May 23 - 25, 2014

Luck of the Draw

DiverseWorks, Houston, TX, USA, May 16 - June 14, 2014

Swimmers, short animation projected on building

Changing Rooms, Fort Canning Park, Galeri Utama, Singapore, 2012