Henry Jackson’s amazing capacity for authenticity in both abstraction and figuration makes an arresting impression for its remarkable emotional candor. In his stunning premier solo exhibition at LewAllen Galleries, entitled Henry Jackson: Halted in Transition, Jackson paints a singular vision of the transcendent plucked with direct visual honesty from the mysteries of the human heart.
In his energetic brushwork and sensuous palette, Jackson confronts the edges of the ineffable, arousing vivid impressions of those parts of the self that can never be fully known but only intensely felt. In his work, one is riveted by the emanations of love, fear, inspiration, grace and guilt – those inevitable aspects of the psyche with which mankind struggles though never fully unravels. With his unique form of abstraction that includes engagingly ambiguous allusions to the human figure, Jackson inscribes onto canvas an honest and valiant chronicle of what it means to be alive and human.
Halted in Transition recalls Jackson’s adept expression of both the familiar and the unknown. Teetering between figuration and pure abstraction, the artist brings alive the turbulent interplay between emotion and meditation revealed from tracings that brook no artifice or contrivance. "Shapes emerge and perish almost simultaneously within their environment, and this revealing does not come easy,” Jackson says. “What remains from this exhaustive struggle are agitated, irreducible forms. This tearing down of the figure is where I begin to see truth.”
Paul Valéry’s aphorism “to see is to forget the name of the thing one sees” seamlessly applies to Henry Jackson’s work, which upon first encounter immediately denies all linguistic categorization, enabling a purity of intense aesthetic experience. Jackson’s paintings are so imbued with vibrant energy and so partaking in the unadulterated beauty of authenticity that even the artist cannot name them. Part of his extraordinary talent lies in a remarkable ability to channel inevitable struggles of an open heart. His sumptuous technique blends a unique process of work in oil and wax on panel-mounted canvas together with unabashed truth-telling about human struggle in the midst of complex mystery to create vivacious paintings that converge vaguely figurative imagery with the abstract.
In a recent review, art critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, Kenneth Baker, said of Jackson: "The San Francisco artist's work fits into the lineage of Bay Area greats such as Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff, who veered between Expressionist imagery and abstraction." However, Jackson remains unique, not only in his medium, but in the originality of the finished product and in his exploration of truth.
A San Francisco native and resident, Jackson studied fine art, design, and psychology at San Francisco State University and the California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA. Jackson is a recipient of: Full Fellowship Award, Artist-in-Residency, Monte Azul, Costa Rica, 2007, 2009, 2011 & 2012; “Hearts of San Francisco” 2012 SFGH Foundation, SF, CA; H.A.R.P Artist-in-Residency (first recipient), San Francisco Zoological Society & The Bernard Osher Foundation, San Francisco, CA; Full Fellowship Residency Award, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; “Nathan Oliveira Fellowship Award”, presented by MMG, San Francisco, CA; Artist-in-Residency, The de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA.
Jackson’s work is part of the permanent collection of: The de Sassait Museum, Santa Clara, CA; Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID; MACA, Chimirol, Costa Rica; Gotham, London, UK; Smith-Andersen Editions, Palo Alto, CA; Ramsbacher-Prokey, LLP, San Jose, CA; The San Francisco Zoological Society, San Francisco, CA.
