Art
Size / / /

Strange Horizons Gallery Presents...

Jacob Wenzka: As Space and Time Permits

Jacob Wenzka has been an Athens resident for six years, arriving there to attend classes at the University of Georgia in the fall of 1996 as a Studio Art Major, focusing on drawing and painting. He originally hails from Buffalo, New York, but spent most of his formative years in Portland, Maine and St. Simons Island, Georgia. His interest in art has been a recent phenomenon in his life, as he never took any of the doodles in the margins of his high school notebooks seriously enough to warrant any formal training. Upon his arrival in Athens, however, that all changed. Almost by accident, he found himself enrolled in a drawing class, and, with the aid of several dedicated and talented instructors, he discovered a talent he never knew he possessed. From that point on, everything came more sharply into focus in his life. Jacob graduated from UGA in 2001, with a degree in Studio Art (focusing on painting), but he continued to take classes for another semester after graduation, working on developing his skills in the area of computer artwork and graphic design. He currently resides in Athens, working both as a graphic designer and also helping to manage and do inventory for a bookstore, while he ponders the big graduate school decision.

Jacob's work is simultaneously disturbing and compelling. While some viewers find the work creepy and unsettling (prompting one local art review to name him the "Local King of Darkness," Flagpole Magazine, 2002), others see the beauty and connect with the meaning behind the images. Most often, people who claim to not be art collectors at all, and who have never bought a painting before in their lives, are the ones who purchase Wenzka's work, seeing it on the wall of a coffee shop or local restaurant and feeling a correlation between themselves and the artist and his work. Jacob's recent paintings have mostly been on wood paneling, and they are usually images of varying sizes, depicting people or scenes that the artist has observed in his life, and then filtered through his mind to create an image that people can universally relate to, capturing the feeling while still maintaining a certain degree of formality and distance between the artist and the viewer. Although Wenzka still feels that his work is in its early stages, and he has much learning ahead of him yet, he has shown the results of his learning in many venues, both locally and in other regions.


View more of Jacob's artwork here and here.

Deep In The Smell Of Caramel ©Jacob Wenzka 2000

Tour Jacob's work, piece by piece. View thumbnails of Jacob's work.

If you are interested in submitting art for the gallery, please read our submission guidelines and then contact us at art@strangehorizons.com.


 

| contents | articles | fiction | gallery | poetry | reviews |
| editorial | archive | bookstore | links | submit | about us |

editor@strangehorizons.com     webmaster@strangehorizons.com



Bio to come.
Current Issue
3 Feb 2025

By: Mu Cao
Translated by: Hongwei Bao
too many things left unsaid/ words fold into themselves 
在沒有時間的Hotel California,Isa成為我的時間。
By: Hsin-Hui Lin
Translated by: Ye Odelia Lu
In the timeless space that is Hotel California, Isa becomes my time.
不思議な道でした。どこまで行っても闇夜。
By: Mayumi Inaba
Translated by: Yui Kajita
It was a strange road. Endless dark night no matter how far I walked.
Issue 27 Jan 2025
By: River
Issue 20 Jan 2025
Strange Horizons
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 13 Jan 2025
Issue 6 Jan 2025
By: Samantha Murray
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 23 Dec 2024
Issue 16 Dec 2024
Issue 9 Dec 2024
Issue 2 Dec 2024
By: E.M. Linden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 25 Nov 2024
Issue 18 Nov 2024
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Load More