The Curator's Eye

Submersible Drifter

Selected by Lars Husby, Director, Bellevue College Gallery Space

Bathyscaphe, 2009, ceramic, paint, dry pigment, 20 x 12 x 6 feet

When asked about his work, Jacob Foran is unapologetic about being in an exploratory stage. After all, he is only twenty-six. But as an artist, he sees it as his job to be curious. Perhaps not coincidentally, exploration has become a theme in his work, which feels more and more genuine as you listen to his stream-of-consciousness style of speaking. I get the sense that he is articulating things as he goes.

Living in a port town like Seattle after growing up in landlocked Illinois is just one influence. Another is loving to fish; yet another is working for his father’s construction company: “My dad used to build interstate highways – that’s why I tend to push the limits. Ceramics is not usually a large-scale medium.”

Currently working on a series of “submersibles” – a word that refers not to submarines but to small vessels designed for exploring deep, deep abysses – Foran is busy building abstract forms of atmospheric diving suits and helmets from clay and ceramic. Sometimes the forms are influenced by other methods of exploration: underground drilling, spelunking, sailing, war. “I’ve become pretty interested in an underworld – any place that is outside our understanding. I am also interested in drifting.”

Bellevue College Gallery director and ceramics artist and instructor Lars Husby says he was enthusiastic about Foran’s work almost immediately: “I am impressed by his detail work. The scale is wonderful; his surfaces are interesting. The subject matter – you should see it: three dogs; a twenty-foot submarine; two figures that are both larger than life size.”

Bathyscaphe (above) is not a submarine, Foran clarifies. The name translates, he says, into “deep quest.” It’s made out of clay, he points out, so it’s large and epic but maintains a sense of fragility to him because it’s never going to swim or float. So it’s not so much water he’s exploring through this work, as the armor that shields it from the atmosphere – that constant internal pressure threatening to close in. Not a bad idea for an artist in times like these.

Artist Stats

Age: 26
Hometown: Monticello, Illinois
Inspired by: Stephen De Staebler, Ron Mueck (sculptor; special effects for Labyrinth), Joseph Turner
Previously was a: Quarterback for his high school football team
Likes to watch: Blue Planet (“It’s like watching a fish tank in your TV.”)
Web site: “I should have one...I will get one...”
To see more: Clay? III: International Juried Ceramics Exhibition at Kirkland Arts Center (March 18–May 5)