Born 1995, UK.
Jacobclayton@live.co.uk J.S.Clayton / Co-founder JAAM PublishingIn Jacob S. Sandhu-Clayton’s early sculptural work Spacell battery (2017) - exhibited as part of his debut solo exhibition ‘E2-E4’ at Niagara Falls Projects - a fresh, dappled-red cooking apple was sus- pended above a rotten, worm-eaten equivalent within an insulated aluminium chamber in a nascent, Beuys-influenced attempt at physically representing the passing of time and the inevitability of aged decay. The apple - nature’s cornerstone of any semiotics class, including one Sandhu-Clayton would himself attend during his later studies at Camberwell College of Art - is a firm fixture of the Western religious, mythological, art historical and, more recently, modern technological canon. At once repre- senting vitality, immortality, fertility, fallibility, lust, loyalty, beauty, temptation, innocence, knowledge, life and/or death, the apple has long served as the artist’s go-to stand-in for all manner of emotions, intentions and meaning. From signifying man’s original sin in the Garden of Eden to being metaphor- ically poisened and promised ‘for the fairest’ in what ultimately led to the fall of Troy, or from solidify- ing Newton’s law of gravity just by falling to being laced with cyanide in Bletchley Park codebreaker and father of modern computing Alan Turing’s suicide (a morbid end often wrongly attributed as the inspiration behind that bite missing from the back of your iPhone or iMac). As if the ultimate symbolic object, the apple has found itself at the center of many a myth, fable, tall-tale or historical re-telling.
Sandhu-Clayton himself returned to the apple towards the end of his MA studies in 2023, during which time he had strayed from the assigned photography pathway and was looking to make a suit- ably painterly statement at his final degree show. Faced with a large 160cm by 180cm canvas, he sought a simple shape and recognisable form to fill it, ultimately landing on a comically oversized apple that appears to press up against the confines of the picture plane. Starkly rendered in raw Cadmium Red against a Titanium White background and finished with a Burnt Umber stalk, its ele- mentary, almost machine-made, composition allowing for an ease of recreation and replication akin to print-making or indeed photography. Since then, the apple has come to take on an increasing impor- tance within his practice, one that I would assert is far removed from any actual semiotic symbolism or straightforward simulacrum. In her influential essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (1986), Ursula K. Le Guin reorientates the predominant narrative of human evolution - and by extension human crea- tivity - away from the accepted history of the weapon as our first tool, proposing instead that the bag or vessel is in fact the key to unlocking our origin of species. Similarly, just as in every infant’s earliest encounters with an alphabetical picture book they will invariably discover first and foremost what A is for, Sandhu-Clayton has seized upon the omnipresent apple as a characterization of his own creative impulse, a vessel through which his own art-making and studio practice can proceed and progress.
And so, in his latest solo exhibition ‘A for Apple’ at 11-12 Majestic Way, we encounter the apple acting as a conduit for experimentations in abstract expressionism, formal minimalism and distorted surre- alism - a container for mark-making that could otherwise be perceived as radical landscapes or psy- chedelic, cosmic constructions. Drawings (as opposed to paintings, Sandhu-Clayton prefers to work directly onto the surface with oil pastel, soft pastel, graphite and, on occasion, oil paint applied direct- ly from the tube) are housed within hand-made wooden frames, attached to found furniture or atop improvised artist-made support structures, in-keeping with a Folk Art tradition that continues to en- amour and inform the artist. Far from the ruby red portrayal of his degree show, or indeed the existen- tialist ready-made of Spacell battery, here one could be forgiven for forgetting what A is for altogether, instead indulging in the generosity of colour, dynamism of gesture and whimsical, sculptural precarity of these new works.
-Hector Campbell, 2025
"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
Clayton’s work fosters an interplay of diverse influences within a mixed media and assemblage practice; building enigmatic worlds Inspired by 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'.
synchronicity plays a significant role in both the cause and effect of Clayton’s outputs. Embracing intuition as a guiding force, his research provokes the accumulation of multiple forms, incorporating found materials within his work and drawing from the transformative potential of the chance encounter.
Through physical experimentation, fragments of literature and pop culture imagery form new collisions in a cyclical process of translation and re-analysis. Each artwork crystalises uniquely, intrinsic to the essence of materials (both physical and intellectual) used, and often diverging from initial imaginations in various levels of anti-narrative critique. 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)
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.
(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
Awards/ Nominations:
MACK First Book Award (shortlisted), 2019
Tom Buckeridge Photography Prize, 2017
Education:
2022-2023: MA Fine Art Photography, UAL Camberwell, UK
2014-2017: BA (Hons) Photography, University of Brighton, UK
2013-2014: Art Foundation Diploma, Stroud College of Art, UK
Press/ collections:
The Finnish museum of photography, Impression remains/ Helsinki darkroom festival, January - April 2022
Helsinki Darkroom Festival (Festival website), 2022
AnOther Magazine, Ten Photographers to Have on Your Radar in 2019, May 2019
British Journal of Photography, MACK First Book Award shortlist, February 2019
Josef Chladek, On Photobooks and Books, E2-E4
Self Publish Be Happy, E2-E4
Photo-book caffe library, Paul St, Hackney, E2-E4
Niagara Falls Projects, Brighton, E2-E4
Source online graduate database, E2-E4
Curatorial projects:
2023 - INTERZONE, Peckham Levels (Level 5/6), London (UK)
Selected solo shows:
2023 - For a seccond I felt I knew something, Camberwell college of Arts / C132, London (UK)
2023 - Spider Portfolio, Avalon Cafe, London (UK)
2023 - Spider Portfolio, Serchia Gallery, Bristol (UK), London (UK)
2022 - The machine is the world / Ophelia turns into a camera, Camberwell college of Arts / C131, London (UK)
2017 - E2-E4, Niagara Falls Projects, Brighton (UK)
Selected group shows:
2025 - A Thousand Pointed Star, Teaspoon Projects, London (UK)
2025 - I Would Rather Be Horizontal, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, London (UK)
2024 - Afterwalls: of the panopticon and its ruins, Millbank tower, London (UK)
2023 - Flag For Breathing In / Flag For Breathing Out, Three Wheel Drive (3WD) festival, Andover (UK)
2023 - Spectrum (Reflection), Bargehouse Oxo Tower Wharf, London (UK)
2023 - Executive Decisions [Film screening], Format 23, Derby (UK)
2023 - Forces of the small, Filet project space (Hoxton), London (UK)
2023 - Late Works: Preparations, Cafe Oto (Dalston), London (UK)
2022 - Soul Retrieval, Beckenham place park, London (UK)
2022 - Dangervitch & Neptune’s Bazaar (Stroud film festival), Stroud Valleys Artspace, Stroud (UK)
2022 - Impression remains / Helsinki Darkroom Festival, The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki (FI)
2021 - Read the room, Serchia Gallery, Bristol (UK)
2021 - Print to print, The printmaking lab, Online gallery / Sri Lanka (LK)
2020 - The Whole Nine Yards (Film screening curated by Harley Kuyck-Cohen), Twitch/ Online
2020 - Uniqlo Tate Lates (Dora Maar), Tate Modern, London (UK)
2019 - MACK First Book Award @ Photo London, Somerset House, London (UK)
2018 - Creative Storm, Brighton Photo Fringe collectives’ hub, Phoenix Brighton (UK)
2017 - University of Brighton Photography Degree Show, 154-155 Edward Street, Brighton (UK)
Broadcasts:
2022 - Late Works: By Ear No.32 /Nov 1st (Resonance extra)
2022 - Summer Songs, Mix for Deepbed Summer /13th -17th July (Deepbed Radio)
2022 - Spring Songs, Mix for Banana Weekend rewind /30th April - 1st May (Deepbed Radio), curated by Dangervitch and Sam Judd
2022 - Adieu La France, bonjour L'Algerie, Mix for Banana Weekend /18th-20th March (Deepbed Radio), curated by Dangervitch and Sam Judd
Publications:
2025 - Guardian Angels, perfect bound / laser printed book - [JAAM publishing] (1st Ed 75)
2023 - A Conspiracy of Objects (297x105cm) 22 page laser printed booklet - [JAAM publishing] (1st Ed 70)
2023 - Substitute electro kilim (297x210cm) 18 page, laser printed booklet - [JAAM publishing] (1st Ed 30)
2023 - Destruction of promise (297x210cm) soft cover sketchbook W/ painted cover (Ed 01)
2022 - Sola Journal / The land from which we come (A5) 84 page soft cover / perfect bound / printed on recycled paper [featured in] (Ed 150)
2021 - Auto-Motive pamphlet (approx 23x15.5cm) 9 page booklet containing type-written poem and 4 archival inkjet prints - [self published] (Ed 01)