Brian R. Jobe
Pax (Mobile Plan), 2025
wood, paint, bungee cord
Pax (Mobile Plan) serves as a process-based touchstone for an ongoing permanent outdoor sculpture I’m working on in Mobile, Alabama (2025-2027). It functions as a time marker within my studio as the plan view concept for this project evolves in response to site conditions.
The addition of color represents a shifting phase as well as a ground plane, while the fixed bungee cord feels like an attempt to secure time itself (in acknowledgment of that impossibility). Pax (Mobile Plan) could be hung on a wall at any orientation, but the hanging hardware suggests a starting point. As the routed design inscribes a plan view diagram, the public is invited into that shift of scale and to imagine walking a unicursal labyrinthine circuit. It will be interesting to revisit this work once the large scale sculpture is complete and reconsider this stage of the process, as it has been memorialized in this form.
Wall works within my studio practice have become infrequent, but this feels like an extension of my sketchbook as well as an idea in transit. I’m excited for it to function within the context of 24 Hours of Wonder, amongst many (spinning) ideas sent out from a wide range of artist practices.Artist Statement
Artist bio
Brian R. Jobe's studio practice is focused on sculpture and installation. In his larger scale work, he creates schemes for public interaction through the delineation of pathways. His most recent work collages material into assemblages utilizing signifiers of natural and manufactured landscapes. The materials are stacked or held in compression, but without the use of hardware or adhesives. He desires a sort of inevitability to be felt within the viewer’s experience as they consider the material’s history and stream of consciousness associations.
His solo exhibitions have been on view at venues such as Mixed Greens Gallery (New York, NY), The Contemporary at Blue Star (San Antonio, TX), The Suburban (Milwaukee, WI), Department of Visual Arts, University of Wyoming (Laramie, WY), Alabama Contemporary Art Center (Mobile, AL), and McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX). He has permanent, outdoor sculptures located at the Western North Carolina Sculpture Park (Lenoir, NC) and Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum (Knoxville, TN). Jobe's work has been reviewed or featured in publications such as Art in America, North Carolina Weekend - PBS North Carolina, San Antonio Express-News, Nashville Scene, and Number Magazine amongst others, and his professional accomplishments mentioned in publications such as Artforum, Art News, and Burnaway.
He was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2004 and Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2006.
@brian_r_jobe
