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JEFF EISENBERG CV REQUEST INFO < back to images BIO Jeff Eisenberg received a certificate in sculpture from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1998 and an M.F.A. in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005. He was a 2010 recipient of the Southern Exposure Alternative Grant and a finalist for the Tournesol Award from Headlands Center for the Arts in 2005. He was an artist-in-residence in 2009 at the Goldwell Open Air Museum in Beatty, Nevada, and in 2006 at the Lanesboro Art Center in Lanesboro, Minnesota. He has had solo shows in the Bay Area, Indiana, Wisconsin, Virginia, Florida, and Portugal, and has shown in exhibitions throughout the United States and in Germany. Jeff currently resides in San Francisco. STATEMENT Improvised Territory May 24 - June 22, 2008 There are a number of vectors that my work explores: Issues of abstraction and form, space shaping and architecture, engineered realities and the built environment. I find myself looking for ways to explore these interests in hopefully surprising ways that operate on a number of thoughts simultaneously. My most recent work has been a series of graphite drawings depicting imagined DIY architecture that mash-up different living conditions and life style solutions, and they are as much a search for novel forms as they are a search to understand what may lead a person to design their most personal space according to some internal plan. The inspiration for these new drawings has a number of sources - all personal to me. Growing up as a kid in the seventies I spent a lot of time around adults who were exploring unique ways to live. Friends of our family lived in an old barn that they had converted into a home and pottery studio; my neighbor built his backyard into a sculptural wonderland made from recycled material and constructed a 100-yard, three story barn behind the abandoned Pack and Save off route 38; my elementary school class helped to construct a geodesic dome as part of Earth Day events; and my own family history is filled with builders. My grandfather was part of a wave of Jewish immigrants that settled in the Jersey Pine Barrens in the 1880s and started farming communities. He built the synagogue and a number of the other buildings in the town and surrounding farms that still stand today. Another influence on this work was my trip to Rome last year and the short time I spent teaching in Wisconsin this past fall. In Rome, I was awe struck by the Coliseum and the Forum-the mass, space and form of the buildings, how they were all hand built, and how over the centuries they have morphed into architectural palimpsests. In Wisconsin, my daily commute was a rural highway, and along the way I saw bric-a-brac buildings of all kinds that read like formal sculptures. This made me wonder what purpose some of them served and what thinking and external conditions lead their creators to make the decisions that lead to these intriguing constructions. For these specific drawings I made a few rules for myself: All the images must have some sort of obvious internal logic, even if that logic is indecipherable; all parts of the drawing must be made to look like something from the real world; all the imagined construction must be made by materials and processes that I have experience with myself; time as well as form and space must be compressed. I also chose to work exclusively in graphite in order to make these images something that everyone can relate to, since at some point in our lives everyone has drawn something with a pencil. By imposing these restrictions on my process I hope to have achieved images that seem honest and everyday even as they rely exclusively on fiction and the imagination of the viewer. PRESS JEFF EISENBERG, "Jeff Eisenberg and Kristen Wilkens make M0bile Pr4ctice", ResonantCity.com, 3 DEC 2010 A full review of Jeff Eisenberg's solo show, SOME RE-ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. JEFF EISENBERG, East Bay Express, 1 DEC 2010 Write-up for SOME RE-ASSEMBLY REQUIRED by DeWitt Cheng JEFF EISENBERG, The Hook 10/20/08 "Linguistic structures: Eisenberg shapes his words" Review by Laura Parsons JEFF EISENBERG, You Tube 10/15/08 Artist interview: Jeff Eisenberg at Second Street Gallery CHRIS LOOMIS + JEFF EISENBERG, East Bay Express 6/13/08 "Improvised Territory: Christopher Loomis' and Jeff Eisenberg total fabications" by DeWitt Cheng Copyright © 2011 Swarm

JEFF EISENBERG

BIO

Jeff Eisenberg received a certificate in sculpture from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1998 and an M.F.A. in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005. He was a 2010 recipient of the Southern Exposure Alternative Grant and a finalist for the Tournesol Award from Headlands Center for the Arts in 2005. He was an artist-in-residence in 2009 at the Goldwell Open Air Museum in Beatty, Nevada, and in 2006 at the Lanesboro Art Center in Lanesboro, Minnesota.

He has had solo shows in the Bay Area, Indiana, Wisconsin, Virginia, Florida, and Portugal, and has shown in exhibitions throughout the United States and in Germany. Jeff currently resides in San Francisco.

STATEMENT

Improvised Territory
May 24 - June 22, 2008

There are a number of vectors that my work explores: Issues of abstraction and form, space shaping and architecture, engineered realities and the built environment. I find myself looking for ways to explore these interests in hopefully surprising ways that operate on a number of thoughts simultaneously. My most recent work has been a series of graphite drawings depicting imagined DIY architecture that mash-up different living conditions and life style solutions, and they are as much a search for novel forms as they are a search to understand what may lead a person to design their most personal space according to some internal plan.

The inspiration for these new drawings has a number of sources - all personal to me. Growing up as a kid in the seventies I spent a lot of time around adults who were exploring unique ways to live. Friends of our family lived in an old barn that they had converted into a home and pottery studio; my neighbor built his backyard into a sculptural wonderland made from recycled material and constructed a 100-yard, three story barn behind the abandoned Pack and Save off route 38; my elementary school class helped to construct a geodesic dome as part of Earth Day events; and my own family history is filled with builders. My grandfather was part of a wave of Jewish immigrants that settled in the Jersey Pine Barrens in the 1880s and started farming communities. He built the synagogue and a number of the other buildings in the town and surrounding farms that still stand today. Another influence on this work was my trip to Rome last year and the short time I spent teaching in Wisconsin this past fall. In Rome, I was awe struck by the Coliseum and the Forum-the mass, space and form of the buildings, how they were all hand built, and how over the centuries they have morphed into architectural palimpsests. In Wisconsin, my daily commute was a rural highway, and along the way I saw bric-a-brac buildings of all kinds that read like formal sculptures. This made me wonder what purpose some of them served and what thinking and external conditions lead their creators to make the decisions that lead to these intriguing constructions.

For these specific drawings I made a few rules for myself: All the images must have some sort of obvious internal logic, even if that logic is indecipherable; all parts of the drawing must be made to look like something from the real world; all the imagined construction must be made by materials and processes that I have experience with myself; time as well as form and space must be compressed. I also chose to work exclusively in graphite in order to make these images something that everyone can relate to, since at some point in our lives everyone has drawn something with a pencil. By imposing these restrictions on my process I hope to have achieved images that seem honest and everyday even as they rely exclusively on fiction and the imagination of the viewer.

PRESS

JEFF EISENBERG, "Jeff Eisenberg and Kristen Wilkens make M0bile Pr4ctice", ResonantCity.com, 3 DEC 2010
A full review of Jeff Eisenberg's solo show, SOME RE-ASSEMBLY REQUIRED.

JEFF EISENBERG, East Bay Express, 1 DEC 2010
Write-up for SOME RE-ASSEMBLY REQUIRED by DeWitt Cheng

JEFF EISENBERG, The Hook 10/20/08
"Linguistic structures: Eisenberg shapes his words"
Review by Laura Parsons

JEFF EISENBERG, You Tube 10/15/08
Artist interview: Jeff Eisenberg at Second Street Gallery

CHRIS LOOMIS + JEFF EISENBERG, East Bay Express 6/13/08
"Improvised Territory: Christopher Loomis' and Jeff Eisenberg total fabications"
by DeWitt Cheng