nicholas b jacobsen is a seventh-generation Utah-Mormon, a European American raised in the traditional homelands of the Nuwu. They use self-critique in an effort to understand Whiteness, hetero-patriarchy, and human exceptionalism. They alter objects and imagery from their U.S., Mormon, and desert upbringing to highlight the parts of these histories that are often left out of the myths of U.S. American innocence and supremacy. They received an MFA in Art & Ecology from the University of New Mexico in 2020 and a BFA in ceramics/sculpture from Southern Utah University. jacobsen has received multiple awards including: scholarships and fellowships at UNM, Omaha Arts and Entertainment's "Best Emerging Artist" and "Best New Media Artist," has been recognized as one of Omaha's "Five Artists to Watch," and worked as an assistant to Jun Kaneko. Their works have been exhibited and collected throughout the U.S. They've been published in Things Organized Neatly, The Alibi, and the Omaha World Herald, and have an upcoming publication in collaboration with Nina Elder. Hear more about nicholas on the Aerogramme podcast "A Guide to Art, Activism, and Culture."
artist statement
I am an artist and researcher dedicated to unsettling settler-coloniality, being a witness to Whiteness, and mending the human/nature divide in dominant U.S. culture. This work emerges as an entanglement of installation, performance, video, ceramics, sculpture, text, and digital collage. My research is slow, embodied, and place-based, emphasizing the time and attention it takes to develop a lasting, visceral understanding of something. Through my work I want others to come away with an open, ongoing, multisensorial curiosity about themselves and the multiplicitous world that are submerged within.
In the mid-1800's, after repeatedly being forced out of their homes in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, my ancestors migrated across the Great Plains into the Great Basin. They then forced the Indigenous inhabitants between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas off of their ancestral hunting grounds, farming lands, and fishing waters. Over a hundred years later, I was raised near Navajo sandstone cliffs, the Virgin River, and the Pine Valley mountains in Nuwu (Southern Paiute) territory. After leaving Mormonism, this land is where I reformed my spirituality. I am in love with someone else's homeland.
As I reckon with this personal and ancestral history, I must also reckon with an inherited ideological history. The Book of Mormon is said to be a record of ancient Christians in the Americas and claims that contemporary Indigenous peoples are among the descendants of a people cursed by God. Further, this book promises that when Indigenous peoples accept the Book of Mormon as their own history, they will become a pure/White people. This settler-colonial violence has become central to my work at the intersections of Mormonism, Whiteness, and American-ness.
curriculum vitae
nicholas b jacobsen nicholas.b.jacobsen@gmail.com | nicholasbjacobsen.com | @nicholasbjacobsen
EDUCATION University of New Mexico M.F.A. Graduate Student 2017-2020 Art & Ecology
Southern Utah University B.F.A in Studio Art 2009-2012 Ceramics
Dixie State College Associate of Science 2001-2009
EXHIBITIONS 2020 Center for Visual Arts | Wausau, WI Roots: Uprooted solo | Aerogramme | Online from Distant Ceramics | Online Distant Ceramics, 1st Edition solo | [AC]2 Gallery | Albuquerque, NM from Invitational | Garage Door Gallery | Incline Village, NV a series of ricochets
2019 John Sommers Gallery | Albuquerque, NM UMWELT Invitational | UNM Art Museum | Albuquerque, NM Emergent 2019 Southern Utah Museum of Art | Cedar City, UT Impact
2018 Patagonia Public Library | Patagonia, AZ Bats without Borders CFA Downtown | Albuquerque, NM Digital Disobedience Two-Person | John Sommers Gallery | Albuquerque, NM in which they bathe with jellyfish Juried | UNM Art Museum | Albuquerque, NM HereNOW
2017 CFA Downtown | Albuquerque, NM At First Sight
2016 KANEKO | Omaha, NE OEAA Visual Art Nominee Showcase
2015 Michael Phelps Gallery, W. Dale Clark Library | Omaha, NE Public Public Petshop North Gallery | Omaha, NE MIXTAPE Solo | Petshop Gallery | Omaha, NE watching the ground Installation of works composed of various discarded materials from Kaneko Studio. Solo | Project Project | Omaha, NE reconsider Arranged remnants of a plumbing company, which once occupied the space, into an organized, imperfectly symmetrical installation Centerylink Center | Omaha, NE communication
2014 Michael Phelps Gallery, W. Dale Clark Library | Omaha, NE 2014 Survey: Omaha Artists Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts | Omaha, NE Flock House Inhabitants Gallery 72 | Omaha, NE Prospect Solo | Bemis Center for Contemporary Art | Flockhouse | Omaha, NE flock house arranged Objects left for the inhabitants to use were neatly put into a pattern on the floor. Solo | Outside | Omaha, NE come with nothing, leave everything Discarded objects found and arranged in abandoned lot. Gallery 72 | Omaha, NE Gang of Five
2013 Sally D. Francisco Gallery | Peters Valley Craft Center | Layton, NJ Riding the Wave: 30 years of Peters Valley Anagama
2012 Solo | The Grind | Cedar City, UT free to a good home Pottery completed post-baccalaureate stay at Southern Utah University Braithwaite Gallery | Southern Utah University | Cedar City, UT B.F.A. Exhibition Braithwaite Gallery | Southern Utah University | Cedar City, UT Earth Day
2011 Sally D. Francisco Gallery | Peters Valley Craft Center | Layton, NJ Faculty and Assistant Exhibition Moscow Clay Works | Scranton, PA Unabridged
2010 Rogue Gallery | Cedar City, UT Debut
2009 Braithwaite Gallery | Southern Utah University | Cedar City, UT Student Exhibition
ARTICLES | REVIEWS Zoe Moldenhauer | "Episode 2: Family, Mormonism, and Whiteness Aerogramme Podcast | July 2020 | www.aerogramme.org/podcast/episode-1
Maggie Grimason | "New Geology" Alibi | April 2018 | www.alibi.com/art/55495/New-Geology
Michael J. Krainak | "ExtrA! ExtrA!" The Reader | January 2016 | www.thereader.com/story/extra_extra
Casey Logan | "Art notes..." Omaha World Herald | September 2015 | http://www.omaha.com/go/art-notes- petshop-exhibit-features-artist-s-arrangements-of-found/article_82a20732-3727 -5500-9710-9e467047ff5f.html
Kim Carpenter | "Five to Watch" Inspired Living Omaha | September-October 2015 | p. 50-51
Austin Radcliffe | Nicholas Jacobsen, Reconsider, at Project Project Things Organized Neatly | Blog | 2015 | thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com
AWARDS | HONORS
2020 Amaco Award | Distant Ceramics
2019 Fellowship | Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholarship | Phyllis Muth Fine Arts Scholarship Scholarship | John L. Knight Memorial Scholarship
2018 Scholarship | Phyllis Muth Fine Arts Scholarship Scholarship | Fred & Rose Ellen Calkins Scholarship
2017 Fellowship | Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
2015 Best New Media Artist | Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards Best Emerging Artist | Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards
2012 Excellence Award | Southern Utah University
RELATED EXPERIENCE ABQ SURJ| Albuquerque, NM Organizer | 2020-Current Paper Turtle | Albuquerque, NM Ceramist | 2020-Current University of New Mexico | Albuquerque, NM Researcher / Ceramics Instructor | 2019-Current Surface and Architecture Workshop | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Plasterer and Fabricator | 2016 - 2017 Jun Kaneko Studio | Omaha, Nebraska Artist’s Assistant | 2012 - 2015 Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts | Maplecrest, NY Teaching Assistant | Summer 2012 Southern Utah University | Cedar City, Utah Teaching Assistant | 2010 - 2012 Peter’s Valley Craft Center | Layton, New Jersey Studio Assistant | Summer 2011