The Valley Series: Recent Paintings by Keith Jacobshagen

Keith Jacobshagen has been a member of the Art Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln since 1968. During the past ten years, he has established a national. reputation as a painter of the mid-western landscape. His studies of the plains are thoughtful assessments of familiar views. But, while Jacobshagen\u27s paintings document the particular conditions of weather, light, topography, and their effect on the land, they also transcend the specific to function as metaphors for the human condition: a solitary viewer surveying an expanse of farm land; a transitory, cloudy sky meeting the cultivated fields; the sky as mystery touching the known earth. The myriad emotions, seasons, and times of day present in a Jacobshagen landscape pivot on the ever present, but inexplicable horizon. The following interview was conducted during July, 1988. It is printed here to accompany The Valley Series, an exhibition of work completed during Jacobshagen\u27s leave from teaching at the University, 1987 to 1988. Throughout that year, the artist returned to the river valleys of Nebraska, Southern Iowa, and Northern Kansas. All the work in The Valley Series refers to the artist\u27s experiences on the Big Blue, Missouri, Platte and Salt River Valleys