Pain Funnel
CD-R
33 minutes
Edition of 20
Signed, dated and numbered
2023
$20.00
Pain Funnel is a 33-minute narrative sound piece consisting of 12 segments. It exists as a precursor to my upcoming painting exhibition Pitch Assembling opening September 1, 2023, at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto. The piece abstractly chronicles my personal experience as a door-to-door salesperson while also relating an imagined journey of peddlers who were early Lebanese immigrants to New Brunswick.
Pain Funneling is a term used in sales that attempts to recognize different forms of pain a customer may be experiencing and proposes to resolve that pain through sales-based solutions. It is a series of questions that assist a salesperson to uncover a prospective customer’s needs, or pain points, and allows them to make a sale while providing assistance.
Pain Funnel is a narrative that amalgamates my interests in sales techniques, IFS therapy, and noise (music). IFS therapy, or Internal Family Systems, is a therapy model that proposes that an individual is comprised of “parts” or subpersonalities that interact in a similar way in which members of a family would. A “part” can be made up of traits that are the influence of an ancestor, whose own experiences have been passed forward into the present. Like the sales technique of pain funnelling, IFS attempts to uncover, both by the client and therapist, pain points through deep introspection, and then find ways in which to manage these.
Noise is an unpatentable, free, and ever-present phenomenon and is the primary musical influence of Pain Funnel. As a non-commercial form of music, noise offsets the entrepreneurial narrative by being a system of sound that is difficult to monetize. Pain Funnel is both a pitch and a story that parallels the process of how ideas are communicated and absorbed in both therapeutic and commercial contexts.
All songs written and performed by Jay Isaac in Rowley, New Brunswick
Mastered by Corey Bonnevie
© Jay Isaac 2023
Toronto Stock Exchange after Charles Comfort and Lisa Hannaford
2022
Silkscreen in two colours on 100lbs cardstock
6 ¼ x 25 (image size), 19 x 28 (sheet size)
Edition of 50
Signed, dated and numbered in pencil
$200.00
The Toronto Stock Exchange after Charles Comfort and Lisa Hannaford is a silkscreen edition printed by Repetitive Press for the exhibition Neutralizer Suite at Paul Petro Contemporary Art in April of 2022.
In 1937 the Canadian artist Charles Comfort created a stone frieze above the entrance to the Toronto Stock Exchange at 234 Bay St. in Toronto. The frieze depicts workers and businessmen in various activities related to the manufacture and exchange of goods. There are two details of the frieze that align with typical subversive messaging of the time. First, is a businessman with his hand reaching into the pocket of a worker, and second, a worker is holding a jack hammer in such a way that it appears as though a rifle is pointed at a businessman’s head.
Isaac became aware of the frieze through a print found and purchased at auction by the artist Lisa Hannaford titled “The Toronto Stock Exchange 1937-1983” which is an editioned lithograph depicting aspects of the Comfort frieze.
Isaac’s contribution to this established lineage is a silkscreen edition of 50, combining aspects of the Comfort and Hannaford work.
Isaac’s work overtly positions art and ideas as commodities that can be exchanged amongst artists, and also as a relatively accessible commodity acquired by buyers. The print can be interpreted as a proxy for a stock. Within the image itself the exchange of resources is complicated by an apparent theft (hand in the pocket) which is also mirrored by creating a rendition of pre-existing artworks.
Midnight Repairs
2019
24 page play
Softcover, saddle stapled, colour
Edition of 50
Hand signed and numbered
7.75” x 5.25”
$20.00
This play was produced as part of Jay Isaac’s exhibition “Midnight Repairs” at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto, which ran from September 6 to October 5, 2019.
Set in a futuristic unnamed metropolis that has been rebuilding for the past few decades, a pair of housepainters and an alien assistant attempt to find a way to paint an area of a ceiling that seems impossible to reach.
Poster 1
Exhibition Poster From the Solo Show Midnight Repairs at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto
2019
Inkjet print
Edition of 3
24” x 18”
Unframed
$300.00
Poster 2
Exhibition Poster From the Solo Show Midnight Repairs at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto
2019
Inkjet print
Edition of 3
24” x 18”
Unframed
$300.00
Poster 3
Exhibition Poster From the Solo Show Midnight Repairs at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto
2019
Inkjet print
Edition of 3
24” x 18”
Unframed
$300.00
Poster 4
Exhibition Poster From the Solo Show Midnight Repairs at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto
2019
Inkjet print
Edition of 3
24” x 18”
Unframed
$300.00
Untitled Poster
2019
Black and white inkjet print
Edition of 50
Signed and numbered
18” x 24”
$50.00
Like a Baby I was Born Again
40 black and white marker drawings reproduced in book format
2018
10” x 8”
Printed by Sebastian Frye at Swimmer’s Group
40 pages, edition of 75, signed
$75.00
Sweat Loaf HallelujaH Exhibition Poster
2017
Screenprinted poster for the exhibition Sweat Loaf Hallelujah at soon.tw in Montreal
2 colour screenprint on white paper
Edition of 25
Signed and numbered
$50.00