• blog
  • in the shadow of sun mountain
  • buy my books
  • photographs
  • paintings
  • bio
  • cv
  • contact
  • search
Menu

Studio Q Photography

Exploring Human Behavior and Death Anxiety Through Art
  • blog
  • in the shadow of sun mountain
  • buy my books
  • photographs
  • paintings
  • bio
  • cv
  • contact
  • search
×

“Ponderosa Pine Growing Out of Granite” - from a whole plate wet collodion negative.

Synthesized Artist Statement

Quinn Jacobson September 25, 2022

I hope you read my “exhaustive” statement last week. It’s what I call my “personal” or “internal” statement. A working statement, written for me to read and think about. It’s the first time I’ve ever shared that kind of thing. I’m trying to allow people that are interested, to learn about my process of making a body of work. And the artist’s statement is the cornerstone of the narrative or story.

This is my “viewer’s” statement (below). The first draft, anyway. It’s synthesized, condensed, and easy to read. It still makes all of the points I want to make about the work but leaves some mystery in it. I want the photographs to “fill in the blanks” and make sense based on these words.

This is my statement for “In the Shadow of Sun Mountain”.

(Post Script: Drex Brooks was one of my undergraduate professors at Weber State University. He was working on this book when I was in the photo program there. It greatly influenced me.)

In The Shadow of Sun Mountain (Tava Kaavi)

“By taking this land for granted, we’ve anesthetized ourselves to history…we live in a state of blunted feeling, capable of cheerful indifference when we visit land once steeped in human agony. Contemplating this indifference can be, at first, infuriating. Americans ought to know what acts of violence brought them their right to own land, build homes, use resources, and travel freely in North America. Americans ought to know what happened on the ground they stand on; they surely have some obligation to know where they are”.

In the book, “Sweet Medicine” by Drex Brooks, 1995.

I live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado - just west of Sun Mountain (Tava). I live on the land where the Ute/Tabeguache spent their summer months for hundreds of years before the white man came to this continent.

These photographs represent a profound feeling that’s rooted in the land and the past. They represent how it feels to live on this land and my relationship to the history of this place.

Every image contains something that is symbolic of the past and present. Every image shows the beauty and horror of the past and present, too. They show my struggle with all of it. And I’ve connected all of it through the materials and processes that I used to make the photographs.

There’s a part of me that’s in conflict with this land. Its history weighs on me. I’ve made these images to address these conflicts in some psychological way. Through making the work, I’ve tried to resolve some of the questions that burden me.

When people see these photographs, and learn about why they were made, I hope it will remind them about what happened here. I want them to feel the loss, appreciate the beauty, and to understand their obligation to never let these kinds of things happen again.

In Artist Statement, Sun Mountain Tags In the Shadow of Sun Mountain, Artist's Statement
← The Utes Lived Here Every SummerExperimental Photography: The Importance of Exploring →

Search Posts

Archive Block
This is example content. Double-click here and select a page to create an index of your own content. Learn more
Post Archive
  • Photography
 

Featured Posts

Featured
Aug 1, 2025
ICYMI - Are We Equipped to Have This Conversation?
Aug 1, 2025
Aug 1, 2025
Jul 30, 2025
When Death Isn’t Just Biology
Jul 30, 2025
Jul 30, 2025
Jul 17, 2025
Photography Was Born from Death Anxiety
Jul 17, 2025
Jul 17, 2025
Jul 16, 2025
How The Sycamore Gap Tree Stirred Emotions
Jul 16, 2025
Jul 16, 2025
Jul 1, 2025
Facing the End: Heidegger, Modernity, and the Meaning We’ve Lost
Jul 1, 2025
Jul 1, 2025
Jun 27, 2025
Vivian Maier: The Invisible Immortality Project
Jun 27, 2025
Jun 27, 2025
Jun 22, 2025
We Will Be Forgotten
Jun 22, 2025
Jun 22, 2025
Jun 18, 2025
To Create in the Face of Death
Jun 18, 2025
Jun 18, 2025
Jun 17, 2025
Quinn, Are You a Materialist?
Jun 17, 2025
Jun 17, 2025
Jun 5, 2025
My (Remote) Talk in Barcelona Next Month
Jun 5, 2025
Jun 5, 2025