Alan Jacobson

For the past thirty-five years my artistic interest has been drawn to representations of imagined people, landscapes, and abstractions rendered with wood and paint. I create to release images that my mind collects in the course of my daily life and to encourage reactions in the viewer. This work reflects my introspective nature and my other roles of psychotherapist and neuro-scientist. As a scientist, I use advanced imaging techniques to study the effects of metabolism on the functioning and structure of the brain. My studies of Religion and my exposure to Eastern Religions through my travels to Japan, India and China add an important dimension to my art. I have been especially influenced by Japanese and Chinese scroll paintings and the sculpted figures of Magdalena Abakanowicz.

I paint with oil and work mainly on plywood panels, wood planks, hollow core doors and MDF board. I often support and surround my paintings with lumber, metal strapping, clamps, cardboard and other common building materials to provide a holding environment and contrasting structural environment to encourage an added dialogue with the visual images that come out in the process. These packages are central to the meaning of each piece and are therefore selected specifically to reflect the impulse behind the work being presented.

B.A. Yale University, Major- Religious Studies

M.D. University of Chicago

Psychiatry Residency, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Self trained as an artist.