My name is Jake McCauley and my work are focused in oil painting. I was born in Williamsport, PA and I studied painting at Kutztown University: BFA 2013. I have been living in Pittsburgh, PA for four years and work in my home studio.

In my latest work, I am looking out at my surroundings and trying to capture the feeling of a moment.  There is a scattered myriad of influences for these images.  I am interested in framing information through color and form. I think about the fact that I observe most of the world away from me through a screen: a window into information.  I am also interested in the formal elements of framing, using the windows as a static form in these paintings.  I hope to convey something quiet about the act of looking and to use paint to focus that view rather than photography. 

There is an abundance of my own personal mythology in the work as well as mundane observation, mistakes, tangents, and my attempts at channeling something more than myself.  Deja Vu can inspire a picture, and create a sense of something ethereal or dreamlike in the mundane, which leads to enough obsession for me to make a painting.  I hope to create a familiarity in my images that allows for the viewer to remember similar moments.  A photograph can capture the moment, form for form, color for color; however, painting has the weight of reality which I feel is needed to convey the experience of that moment.

When I start a painting, I find it helpful to set parameters; for some reason, I feel more freedom in the rules I’ve made for myself. The “rules” initially revolve around light, form, and color.  In order to get the process started, I try to simplify my motivation.  Sometimes this means looking for the familiarity in the image that motivates me to make a painting, sometimes that is not a conscious decision. Making a painting, especially with oils, is a very tedious process, and not always enjoyable; therefore, I find myself asking, “Why paint this? Can this be photographed? Captured on film? Made in a simpler way?”  Ultimately, painting is the form of communication that I find most valuable for investigating myself.  When I work through a painting, I move closer to a sense of my true self because I am forced to address and illustrate the various symbols and psychological influences my surroundings bring to mind.

www.jakemccauleyart.com