Ferrara Showman Gallery is excited to launch a new exhibition series of online exclusives with the inaugural exhibition featuring the work of Gettysburg, PA based painter Sarah Jacobs entitled Remarkable Future. These quarterly, digital shows will accompany the gallery’s regular rotation of solo and group exhibitions, providing the opportunity to introduce new artists - like Jacobs - as well as new bodies of work by represented gallery artists to the gallery program. Partner and Gallery Director Matthew Weldon Showman says of the new campaign: “As the gallery continues to grow, as do our interests and ambitions, it became clear we were in need of a creative avenue to expand our exhibition schedule to allow for more experimentation and discovery.”

Jacobs states: “I am thrilled to have been invited to be the first featured artist in this new virtual series by Ferrara Showman Gallery! I have long admired the artists that the gallery exhibits from afar in Pennsylvania. When Matthew Weldon Showman suggested a studio visit, I was honored and slightly nervous to host a curator I admired so much, but he put me at ease with his kind nature and keen insight. It is a pleasure to partner with a collaborative art dealer who very truly loves art. Look out for an additional painting that will drop mid exhibition that will prove my last statement in a very fun way! Thank you, Matthew and the team at Ferrara Showman!” Remarkable Future will be on view - online only - from 1 September through 31 December 2024. 

Jacobs elaborates on the work in the exhibition . . . 

Although the paintings in this exhibition belong to different series created over nine years the conceptual thread connecting them is Time. One painting comments on Time itself. Five pieces are visual interpretations of past experiences. The rest illustrate attempts to influence or divine the future.

Another Place and Quilts and Screen Doors illustrate my memories of places and times now missed. Mrs. Got Rocks, The Hawk Circles at Midnight, and Mr. Epley, Mr. Ulgar, and Mr. Johnson were inspired by my experiences with people who had passed away.

When we remark upon the future - our own, of the world, of the possibility of life after death - we can only discuss predictions and debate strategies to influence it. The real future remains elusive, something perpetually imagined and chased. Sages suggest that only the present exists, given that the past has expired and the future ceases to be when any given anticipated moment arrives. The astral illustration on the backs of the playing cards in Amethyst Dynamite suggest that the players may be divining the future.

In Votive an ambitious figure climbs a ladder, forgetting that even while chasing an elusive dream he remains a part of nature. In Psyche and Portrait of the Viewer as Hope, the future of our world and ourselves appears uncertain, concerning. Portrait of the Viewer as Daytime depicts multiple configurations of one bright skyscape. Time is perceived to flow forward in thermal systems like ours, but theories of contemporary physics suggest that time behaves differently in other systems. The implications of this on life as we know it are beyond comprehension. Our nearer enigma, the Future, is enough of a puzzle for most, as is the challenge of living in the present.

Sarah Jacobs is a contemporary maximalist artist. She is represented in NYC by Fremin Gallery, in Pittsburgh by Zynka Gallery, and in Erie by GlassGrowers Gallery. Her work has been exhibited in the US and Europe and she has taken part in artist residencies in Grimma, Germany; Cali, Colombia; and Taos, New Mexico. She has won multiple grants, including the Arts Council England Grant, and her work can be found in public and private collections in the US, UK, and Hong Kong. She has had solo and two-person exhibitions in New York City, London, Wrocław, Poland and Bristol, England, among other cities.

Jacobs is Pennsylvania Dutch and was raised in Littlestown, Pennsylvania. She was educated in Art History at Gettysburg College where she was especially drawn to Byzantine art. She received her MFA from the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore in 2010. There she studied under Joyce Kozloff, founding member of the Pattern & Decoration and Feminist art movements of the 1970’s, and the minimalist artist Timothy App. Jacobs moved back to the USA in 2014 after three years living in London and Bristol, UK where she became a naturalized British citizen.

She lives and paints in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Besides making and studying art, she enjoys fine wine, reading novels and philosophy, long walks in the battlefield, and traveling.

For more information, press or sales inquiries please contact Gallery Director Matthew Weldon Showman at 504.343.6827 or matthew@ferrarashowman.com. Please join the conversation with FSG on Facebook (@FerraraShowmanGallery), Twitter (@FerraraShowman), and Instagram (@FerraraShowmanGallery) via the hashtags: #SarahJacobs, #FerraraShowmanGallery, and #ArtsDistrictNewOrleans.