Huntsville, Ala. – The Huntsville Museum of Art (HMA) is excited to announce the opening of the newest exhibition, Encounters: Jim Jobe. The exhibition will be on view through July 1, 2018.

The Encounters series is a long-standing showcase for outstanding regional contemporary art. This installation of Encounters focuses on the accomplished works of the respected Huntsville artist, Jim Jobe. The Museum hosted a Gallery Walk and Reception with the artist on Sunday, April 8 to a very large and engaged crowd.

“Jobe’s paintings and drawings incorporate both pure abstraction and an eccentric combination of abstract and representational elements,” remarked HMA Director of Curatorial Affairs Peter Baldaia. “Much of his imagery suggests both direct and peripheral perception.”

Primarily recognized as a painter, Jobe works in several disciplines and mediums. For a few years, in an effort to refocus his work, the artist stopped painting altogether and tried to re-teach himself how to draw. Admiration for the craftsmanship of woodworkers and ceramicists led him to approach drawing more as a way of achieving mastery with a pencil as a tool than as a way to produce imagery. This led him more deeply into abstraction, studying the interplay between line and shape and color.

Jobe is an avid hiker and uses his outdoor excursions as a way to help explain his work: “When you’re hiking, you can stop and frame a bucolic setting, but that’s not how you experience it. In reality, imagery comes in constantly from all sorts of directions. It’s how I see things. Everywhere, I see these puzzle-pieces of interwoven connections.”

Born in Buffalo, New York, Jobe spent his youth in a military family traveling throughout the United States and abroad, finally moving from Athens, Greece and settling in the Southeast. He earned a B.S. in art education from Freed-Hardiman College in Henderson, TN, as well as B.F.A. and M.F.A. in fine art from the University of Alabama, and has worked as an artist, art educator, and strong advocate for arts education.

For more information about the Huntsville Museum of Art and to see what other exhibitions are on display, visit hsvmuseum.org.

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Lead Sponsor: The Kuehlthau Family Foundation
Additional Support Provided By: The Alabama State Council on the Arts; Altherr Howard Design; The Huntsville Museum of Art Guild