Oliver Lee Jackson, Painting, 2003-2015, oil-based pigments, mixed media on linen.
Oliver Lee Jackson, No. 5 (11.29.16), 2016.
Oliver Lee Jackson, Untitled Bust, 2009, wood, metal, mixed media.
Oliver Lee Jackson, Marble Sculpture No.3, 1983, marble, rags, steel.
Oliver Lee Jackson, No. 8, 2017, oil-based paints on panel.
Oliver Lee Jackson, No. 4, 2018, oil-based paints on panel.
Burning in Water is pleased to present Untitled Original 2.0, a solo exhibition of recent work by the Oakland-based artist Oliver Lee Jackson featuring recent paintings, sculpture and mixed media works. Untitled Original 2.0 will be presented in both of our New York gallery locations: 505 West 27th St. and 317 10th Ave. The show precedes an upcoming major exhibition of the artist’s work at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Featuring 25 large-scale works, Oliver Lee Jackson: Recent Paintings will open at the National Gallery of Art in March of 2019.
Nurtured by the spirit of mid-century artistic freedom characterized by modern jazz and abstract expressionism, Oliver Lee Jackson embarked on a decades-long trajectory of singular artistic experimentation. In parallel with his development as visual artist, Jackson maintained a career as an educator teaching Art and Philosophy at universities throughout the United States and abroad. Jackson’s sustained approach to art-making remained determinedly individualistic even as it was profoundly informed by a dizzying array of influences, including West African sculpture, El Greco, Giotto, Rembrandt, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Philip Guston.
While critics have long-remarked upon Jackson’s uncanny ability to synthesize such a broad array of references into a highly-unique, individualistic style, Jackson considers such inputs to be mere constituents in service of his agenda to create work that renders vision beyond:
If you are true to yourself and the inner logic that develops with each painting, unity will take care of itself. The painting and everything in it - whether its the ‘realism’ of a Vermeer or the ‘abstraction’ of a Pollock - is a vehicle for something beyond it. It has to be put together as perfectly as possible, like any vehicle, but it is the vision beyond that gives the painting meaning.
