Alex Jackson
(b. 1993)Alex Jackson’s surrealist paintings engage a range of subjects, including mythology, space, and the assembly and deconstruction of identity.
Biography
Growing up in Kenosha, Washington, Jackson initially aspired to work as an illustrator with the goal of becoming a painter. He began exploring painting during his sophomore year in college.
These early paintings include abstracted portraits of people Jackson knew, signaling to the ways that figurative painting felt imposed on him during his undergraduate experience. After realizing these portraits were more symbolic of larger communities than the subjects they portrayed, Jackson reinvented his practice in graduate school by removing referential materials and working from a creative space of invention and world-building. Narratives became more intrinsic to his paintings, and he began to explore global painting traditions, namely Indian miniature painting, as a method of grounding his practice. During this time, Jackson started writing a fictional text that has become foundational to his work. This text narrates the story of “E,” Jackson’s protagonist, who arrives at a Maroon village via a starfish; he eventually implodes into a black hole. The resultant compression of matter into a singular space is the place from which Jackson’s paintings depart. “Lookers” and “Seers,” supernatural characters drawn from “E,” recur in Jackson's paintings, drawings, and prints as ways to depict otherworldly themes.
Jackson earned his BFA in painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University in 2015 and 2017, respectively. In 2015, he completed a residency at the Skowhegan School of Printmaking and Sculpture. Jackson’s gallery and museum exhibitions include those at Elmhurst Art Museum, the Museum of Wisconsin Art, Peep Projects, and Castor Gallery. Jackson’s work entered the Studio Museum collection in 2020.
Alex Jackson
(b. 1993)Alex Jackson’s surrealist paintings engage a range of subjects, including mythology, space, and the assembly and deconstruction of identity.
Biography
Growing up in Kenosha, Washington, Jackson initially aspired to work as an illustrator with the goal of becoming a painter. He began exploring painting during his sophomore year in college.
These early paintings include abstracted portraits of people Jackson knew, signaling to the ways that figurative painting felt imposed on him during his undergraduate experience. After realizing these portraits were more symbolic of larger communities than the subjects they portrayed, Jackson reinvented his practice in graduate school by removing referential materials and working from a creative space of invention and world-building. Narratives became more intrinsic to his paintings, and he began to explore global painting traditions, namely Indian miniature painting, as a method of grounding his practice. During this time, Jackson started writing a fictional text that has become foundational to his work. This text narrates the story of “E,” Jackson’s protagonist, who arrives at a Maroon village via a starfish; he eventually implodes into a black hole. The resultant compression of matter into a singular space is the place from which Jackson’s paintings depart. “Lookers” and “Seers,” supernatural characters drawn from “E,” recur in Jackson's paintings, drawings, and prints as ways to depict otherworldly themes.
Jackson earned his BFA in painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University in 2015 and 2017, respectively. In 2015, he completed a residency at the Skowhegan School of Printmaking and Sculpture. Jackson’s gallery and museum exhibitions include those at Elmhurst Art Museum, the Museum of Wisconsin Art, Peep Projects, and Castor Gallery. Jackson’s work entered the Studio Museum collection in 2020.