Biography
SUZANNE JACKSON
My focus is the exploration of the strength of pure acrylic paint as structure and narrative. Formed acrylic shapes are integrated dimensional surfaces in the paintings and in drawings. These are my visual responses, recognizing ancestral traditions that continue to resonate in contemporary African-American retentions and expressions. African-American
Classical music (also known as jazz), Blues, and Indigenous World music forms are visualized associating references to musicians, to dance, and to natural elements, strongly influencing my work process. Pushing possibilities of the pure paint materials, I work as if each beginning is a large-format drawing. These works evolve into paintings, held together mostly by pure pigment. Reused Acrylic shards and fragments directly applied alter gestural content and surface.
The paintings synthesize elected cultural memory in visual representation, integrating drawn, implied or painted line. Pinching, crimping and pleating become linear reconstructions of the painted surface. Elements and alterations are refined with acrylic paint emphasizing structural tensions and fluidity of form in the final effect. The flexible two-dimensional surfaces are realized into “almost “three- dimensional form. Within each composition are suggested responses to curiosities about passed-down stories and lesser known day to day traditions that are in continuing practice within African-American heritage and culture.
Surrounded by the raw elements of nature and its various extraordinary transitions, I am now settled, experiencing and living in the Savannah Georgia lowcountry since 1996.
The development of my paintings and drawings has evolved as a result of continued searching and finding the “spirit” references especially to Indigenous-American cultural traditions and events, established and evidenced, in the entry origins of African-American cultural experiences, throughout the Americas.
Moving from place to place, the influence has been, following the paths of ancestors.
