Walkthrough
Painting (12.15.04), 2004
Oil-based paint, enamel paint, applied linen, and mixed media on linen.
108" x 144"
No. 5, 2018 (3.24.18), 2018
Oil-based paints on panel.
72" x 95"
Painting (11.30.92), 1992
Mixed media on linen.
108" x 108"
Painting (1.1.93), 1993
Mixed media on linen.
108" x 108"
Painting (10.14.06), 2006
Oil-based pigments on gessoed canvas.
95" x 108"
Painting (11.30.10), 2010
Water-based paint and metallic enamel paint on canvas.
64 1/4" x 64 1/4"
Painting (11.18.10), 2010
Mixed media on canvas.
64 1/4" x 64 1/4"
Because of my relationships with music and musicians, I began to understand how I could approach making something — starting the with the first mark, that very first mark.
The musicians I was listening to might begin very, very softly - touching silence tenderly or harshly. In doing either, they never seemed to violate the silence. That’s what I was trying to do in making — achieve directness. Directness is personal. To be direct is to be yourself. To be yourself is to know yourself.
Musicians take the house with sound. I take it through sight. Beethoven’s Fifth - how does he take the space? [Sings the opening motif]. He took it!
Well, you can do it with color - a splash of red. Bam!
See? I understood.
Oliver Lee Jackson-
Malin Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings and sculpture by Oliver Lee Jackson, Take the House. Based in Oakland, the 84-year-old artist has been pursuing his singular artistic vision for over five decades.Take the House is the gallery’s third solo exhibition of work by Jackson and follows his acclaimed exhibition at the National Gallery, Washington: Oliver Lee Jackson - Recent Paintings.
Drawn from over a forty-year span of Jackson’s career, the selection of works in Take the House demonstrate visual elements that have re-emerged in his work over time. Several of the artist’s “white space” paintings from different periods are featured. Echoing Ornette Coleman’s selection of his friend Jackson Pollock’s painting The White Light (1954) as the cover art for the seminal 1961 album Free Jazz, Jackson’s “white space” works suggest parallels between a bright visual expanse and seemingly limitless possibilities for creation.
