Synchronicity plays a significant role in both the cause and effect of this research. Embracing intuition as a guiding force, his working often provokes the accumulation of multiple forms, incorporating found materials, and drawing from the transformative potential of the chance encounter.
Clayton describes his work as “a conduit, transcending the boundaries of individual understanding to explore the vast expanse of external information”. Embracing the uncertainties inherent in image making his outputs chase infinite possibilities and invite viewers to critique their own sources of knowledge and truth. To quote Philip K. Dick’s famous Metz speech (1977); “in-fact plural realities [do] exist – superimposed onto one another like so many film transparencies”(1)
Influences include Alejandro Jodorowsky’s re-interpretation of the Marseille Tarot, allegories of quantum mechanics in science fiction novels, and the conceptualisation of the artwork as a container, as outlined in Ursula K. Le Guin's 'Carrier bag theory of fiction'.
(1) Dick, P.K. (1991) PKDS Newsletter, #27: If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others. California: The Philip K. Dick Society
Clayton describes his work as “a conduit, transcending the boundaries of individual understanding to explore the vast expanse of external information”. Embracing the uncertainties inherent in image making his outputs chase infinite possibilities and invite viewers to critique their own sources of knowledge and truth. To quote Philip K. Dick’s famous Metz speech (1977); “in-fact plural realities [do] exist – superimposed onto one another like so many film transparencies”(1)
Influences include Alejandro Jodorowsky’s re-interpretation of the Marseille Tarot, allegories of quantum mechanics in science fiction novels, and the conceptualisation of the artwork as a container, as outlined in Ursula K. Le Guin's 'Carrier bag theory of fiction'.
(1) Dick, P.K. (1991) PKDS Newsletter, #27: If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others. California: The Philip K. Dick Society
"Works by the artist Jacob Clayton tap into many philosophies and reflections. Material and photographic exploration manifest in pieces that are materially resolved yet propose many questions. With a defining set of symbols and visual language, works may at first exude obscurity, but on closer inspection provide many departures into understanding Clayton’s view on human cultures.
Manifold iterations in physical and printed form bridge analogue photography and mixed-media sculpture practices. Work with the camera derives an exhilaration from viewfinder projections, taking images as taking objects in parallel, developing a collection from which to reduce new work.
Art objects that transform found domestic items and other material through deconstruction and rebuilding, branded with words repurposed, become the subject of documentation, reflecting in his output the cyclical systems and chain reactions that Clayton muses on in life/research.
Claytons Work is a playful transmission of imitations and reductions which explore material and technological potentials, referencing, among other things, sci-fi novels. In a practice dense with such intricate image loopholes, expansive allusions and recurrent entropy, the influence of American folk art might surprise, but underlying Clayton’s practice is a distillation of experience, with a comparably unconstrained approach to making art."
-Tom Heatley, 2020