On View: March 15 - April 20, 2013
Opening Reception: Friday, March 15, 7-9pm
For his fourth solo exhibition at Civilian Art Projects, Erick Jackson presents a new body of vibrant, large-scale paintings fueled by dreams, memories and fantasies of an imagined, other world. Since graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in the early 1990’s with a degree in illustration, Jackson’s primary visual art output has been painting and drawing. Like the narrative painters who are his contemporaries (the Leipzig School comes to mind), or those who have come before him, he is building up layers of paint: acrylic, gouache, Flashe, and other pigments. The work nods to realism, and to surrealism; but its signature is in the palette, the layers, and the mood, resulting in a unique style all his own.
According to the artist, his paintings depict “a world romanticized as one of tranquility, decay and destruction – parentless, ageless youths roam an endless playground in pursuit of a remedy to their youthful ennui. The locations are reccurring places that I visit in dreams. The scenes are set at dusk or night. To me, night represents the unknown, where the possibilities are endless. Things are out of focus, unclear; and everything is easier on your eyes.”
The title “Folks” is inspired by both the classic daily comic strip "Peanuts," whose original title was “Li’l Folks”, and the Chicago street gang Folk Nation. “Peanuts is a world where parental figures are not seen, and the characters look like children, yet act like grumpy old people. The gang is a very similar youth-oriented creation, living outside normal society with their own brand of language, style, rules, and images,” writes Jackson.
Most recently, Jackson had solo exhibitions at the Lois Lambert Gallery in Los Angeles and at Sala Diaz in San Antonio, TX. In Washington, he has had solo exhibitions at Civilian Art Projects, Transformer, and D.C. Arts Center. A musician and visual artist, he founded the band the Apes in 1999, that has since morphed into the three-piece band, Heavy Breathing. His work is in many private collections. It has been reviewed in Identity Magazine, The Washington Post, the Washington City Paper, and more.
