Devorah Jacoby: Mysterious Barricades
Complex psychological dramas play out like moody, amorphous dreams in Devorah Jacoby’s Mysterious Barricades. Seduced by the surfaces of her canvases, we may abruptly be startled to confront an array of arresting images which expose raw nerves. Jacoby’s gift for exploring deep emotional content relates to experience doing art therapy with children. “I was always so interested in the internal story they were telling,” the artist stated, “children, and many adults as well, have difficulty verbally communicating thoughts and feelings, but can communicate so much through their artwork.”
Jacoby, a long-time Bay Area resident whose early years were spent in Chicago, had studied law for two years at USF before shifting to psychotherapy—obtaining degrees including a certificate in Art Therapy from UC Berkeley. Being so closely involved with the power of images encountered as a therapist whetted the artist’s desire to embark on her own studio practice. Her choice was affirmed by the tremendous response the work received—her ability to convey feelings and suggest the complex dynamics of human interaction resonates with a power born of experience and knowledge.
Inspired by American Realist painter Robert Henri’s Portrait of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1916), Motherhood (2013) presents a sensual woman in repose on a vermilion couch, her naked child gazing back at the viewer, conflating the odalisque with the Madonna. The rich red of the upholstery could allude to blood—the fluid which defines women’s passages throughout maturity and as well accompanying the act of birth. With a red-on-white diamond pattern echoing the diamond shapes of the couch, the figure’s dress parts on one side, discreetly revealing the form of a full breast. The lovely face of this woman, as is the case in numerous of Jacoby’s works, reveals several contradictory states, and in fact separate faces join on the neck as one. She is serene in one version, attentive to child in another, ravenously devouring a slice of melon in a third. Jacoby comments on “the conflict, needing to be fully present and connecting with our kids while also taking care of ourselves.”
A number of the works, Ice Skating (2010-13), Yellow Chair (2013), Veil (2013), and Girl with Chandelier (2013), for example, present solitary figures, their environments loosely sketched and hazy, caught as though in a contemplative moment. Leavings (2012-12) offers two figures, yet suggests one; frontal and back views of a young woman, caught in transition, in a creamy background littered with flora and fauna. A pair of kittens on her shirt seem to be in motion as well, as a hand emerges from the edge of the garment to cradle one.
Woman as a sensual, indeed sexual, being, is another recurring theme in the artist’s work. Hide and Seek (2010-13) presents a provocative image of a winged female figure, spreadeagled and blindfolded, perched in an ambiguous way atop another figure, one only visible as a pair of legs. Both sets of legs culminate in high heel shoes, suggesting a twinning of the figures. White gloves cover hands which nestle adjacent to a piece of drapery that obscures intimate detail. A partially sublimated sexual tension also informs the dynamic A Girl and Her Dog (2012-13), where the pair engage in a physical game on a checkered spread, the “girl” caught while attempting to pry a red ball from the canine’s teeth.
Zebra (2011-13) incorporates the head and neck of the creature “representing clarity in black and white terms…they’re beautiful, strong animals, and the spiritual symbolism of the stripes has to do with the integration of opposites.” A grid of gray and pink creates order—a surprising variation is one square slathered in silver glitter. Repeatedly throughout Jacoby’s oeuvre, women present conflicting images of poise and anxiety, of a restraint quickly countered by abandon. We meet women actively revealing aspects of themselves—rather than as a passive objects of the viewer’s gaze.
A relatively rare glimpse into the psyche of men appears in Against the Wall (2013), linking to the artist’s darker side, the armless male figure is presented upside-down, the top of a head and chest face us, while bent legs are turned at a right angle. Says Jacoby “he is naked on the floor…exposed and unguarded. Twisting and at points turning away from looking at the barren, vulnerable, and often perplexing inner-expedition of his life…”
Jacoby has found inspiration in a wide range of sources, from Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais’ Ophelia (1852), which informs the work Drifting(2012), to the Bay Area Figurative School, where she senses a close alliance to artists such as Joan Brown and Nathan Oliveira. Nest (2012-13) clearly reveals influence from German Expressionist painters, particularly the Verists group found in Weimar Germany. “I was in New York, on the bus, and saw this ad, and there was this little tiny show at the Met called ‘Glitter and Doom,’ one of those shows that makes you fall to your knees.” Devorah cites her debt as well to South African-born artist Marlene Dumas, who makes her home in the Netherlands, as inspiration for the courage to push boundaries.
Daring in imagery and subject matter, one may note a marked restraint in Jacoby’s palette. She gravitates toward monochromatic black and white and greyscale as a unifying feature, often combined with delicate pinks countered by intensely saturated reds. This measured, tasteful use of color may act as a foil for the more highly-charged emotional content—making it a deceptively smooth passage into the churning emotional currents within the work.
Barbara Morris
May 2013