5.30.22 Configuration 2, 23" x 23"

Photographic Sculpture. Framed.

“For the last twenty years or so, my practice has been heavily involved with digital imagery with an emphasis on photography. In the last few years there became a need to create new art to spend less time on a computer and more time creating physical pieces. This need, coupled with experiencing a pandemic, led to the birth of a new and unfamiliar way of making art never seen before. 

'Socially Distanced' is a body of work that is a cross between collaged photography design, and paper sculpture. Subjects are photographed from a distance, manipulated, printed, and cut out leaving their feet attached to the print. Each cutout figure leans forward creating a halfway between 2D and 3D, and they cast their own shadows depending on the lighting. The final presentation of these photo-based sculptures is a print mounted to board, framed with 1/2" spacers inside an artist’s shadow box, showing how the figures exist in the environment of a frame while the design speaks to the distances between them."

Jacob Watts is an artist residing in Chicago Illinois that specializes in image manipulation. Through digital and physical manipulation, he seeks to push the boundaries of photography to blend with illustration and sculpture. Jacob is the creator of the giant moose-blowing bubblegum mural. Working as a photographer, retoucher, and artist, Jacob is always pushing his creative ideas.