Roxanne Jackson
Roxanne Jackson is a ceramic artist and sculptor living in Brooklyn, NY. Her macabre works are black-humored investigations of the links between transformation, myth, and pop culture. Press for her work includes The New York Times, The New Yorker, The LA Times, Juxtapoz Magazine, Hyperallergic, Forbes, Metal Magazine, The Huffington Post, Artnet, The Observer, Gothamist, Whitehot Magazine, Beautiful Decay, Cool Hunting, and Ceramics Monthly, among others. She is the recipient of residencies at Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park (Japan), the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (NE), Socrates Sculpture Park (NY), Wassaic Project (NY), PLOP (UK), Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts (ME), the Ceramic Center of Berlin (Germany), funded by a Jerome Project Grant, and the Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen (China), funded by an NCECA fellowship. Jackson has exhibited widely, showing her work in exhibitions at DUVE Berlin Gallery, Cob Gallery (London), Anonymous Gallery (Mexico City), Mindy Solomon Gallery (Miami), Garis and Hahn (LA), Kunstraum Niederösterreich (Vienna), and Untitled Art Fair (Miami Beach) with Richard Heller Gallery. She has recently shown her work in New York City at venues including The Hole, Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, Ortega y Gasset Projects, SARDINE, Underdonk, Honey Ramka, Regina Rex, Dinner Gallery, and SPRING/BREAK Art Fair. She recently had works in the exhibition “Friends and Friends of Friends” at the Schlossmuseum in Linz, Austria, and “Double Vision” - a two-person show at The Hole. She looks forward to upcoming shows at JEFF in Marfa, Texas, and a residency and exhibition at Lefebvre & Fils in Versailles and Paris, France. Roxanne will present a solo show at Alloche Benias in Athens, Greece next year.
What is your background and how has it affected your professional career. And when did you first start working with ceramics?
My dad was a very creative person. He was a talented and amazing musician and he was always making things with his hands —like paintings and found-object sculptures. We drew and colored together a lot when I was very young. One of my first memories was having the awareness that I would be an artist. In elementary and high school I won awards for my drawings frequently and, in general, my creativity was encouraged by most people around me. I feel very fortunate for this.
I went to undergraduate school at Humboldt State University in northern California. Many refer to this area as the ‘Emerald Triangle’ — because this region grows a lot of marijuana, and has for many years. In fact, I worked on weed farms, which helped pay for my education of earning a botany degree, with an art minor. What’s more, my lifestyle as a river guide influenced my decision to study science because one of my roles was to educate the guests on the surrounding landscape, while teaching them the importance of biodiversity. I wanted to help ‘save the planet.’ But my dad was pressuring me to take art classes in undergrad and once I took his advice, it really set me on my path. Especially after I took ceramics, which was my first exposure to clay and 3D art. I knew that I found my medium and my love for this material has only grown.
My role as river guide of many years greatly influenced me as a person and as an artist. I primarily worked on rivers throughout California but, I also worked in Alaska for a couple of seasons, I worked a bit in Oregon and also the country of Nepal. After hiking some trails in the Grand Canyon, I rowed a boat down that river too, for a two week adventure. In Alaska we rafted down the Alsek and Tatshenshini Rivers. These rivers were more rugged than most; they were so remote that we had to fly out in small helicopters at the end of the two week expedition, because there were no roads. On these trips I saw so much wildlife that I literally lost count of the number of Grizzly Bears I saw, as well as Bald Eagles — so plentiful they were like pigeons in the city. I also saw a wolf, several moose and countless other beasts. I also experienced glaciers. Beyond the confluence of the two rivers, the merged river turned into a lake, as over much time the surrounding glaciers calved off icebergs that melted to form a giant lake in the middle of the river. As guides, we had to carefully navigate our boats around the icebergs, hoping none would roll while we were too close and in their wake — these forms were impressively jagged, sculptural and monumental. The landscape in general was overwhelmingly epic. And, Alaska in the summer doesn’t get dark at night, so the beauty of the wild landscape really was overwhelming; you had to sleep in a tent, just to turn off the views.
I was also a snowboarder and I lived in Colorado for the winters. So I was fairly nomadic for some years, moving back and forth between Colorado and California, following the seasons. While living near Aspen I had a studio in Snowmass Village at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, where I built a body of ceramic work that would get me into graduate school. Then I earned my MFA in ceramics from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln (2004). It has been a clay reality ever since.
What is your process like? How do you begin a sculpture?
I use different techniques depending on the form I am making. When making vases, I use coil building and with most other forms I build with solid clay that is later hollowed out so the work doesn’t blow up in the kiln. This latter process is a very intuitive and immediate one; this process of building allows me to respond to the clay in an intuitive way. For instance, I always have a vague idea of what I want to make in my head (I don’t start with drawings) and that image guides me. But the form develops as I sculpt and see things, textures, forms emerge in and from the clay. I like to be able to be spontaneous in the process so that new ideas are able to materialize. My glazing is experimental and I start with test tiles, or glaze sample tests, to achieve various surfaces on my sculptures.
Photo by : Joshua Simpson
Describe a real life situation that inspired you?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the seed of inspiration and my visual language; it comes from several places, including my upbringing. I grew up in a family that had a lot of pets, including reptiles like boa constrictors and iguanas, tropical fish and various mammals such as pet rats and more. My older brother raised exotic birds and lizards such as chameleons. After he died an unexpected death, I entered his apartment weeks later to find his aquarium full of dead reptiles, who died of starvation. Blocking this memory out for several years, it came back when I was at Vienna’s natural history museum. While exploring the room of preserved reptiles in formaldehyde jars, my memory was triggered. I saw jars of chameleons and with the most intense recollection, I recalled the scene I witnessed of the emaciated lizards.
These formative stories inspire this work. Also, years of travel and adventure, both with the body and the mind have influence. Cry Baby and Pure Lust are goat-bat creatures blended together to create something new -- a fantastical beast. The latter is split and open — revealing a psychedelic interior with a gold nugget representing the pineal gland / the kernel of being / the seed of consciousness. The open cavity of the head and the once melted, dripping glaze now frozen, calls to mind the cycle of existence, of life and death and transformation; it is a shapeshifter caught in a moment. Like the snake that eats the mouse. Black Flame is a lizard head, split open to reveal an iridescent human skull, mimicking a pearl growing inside a bivalve. A skull carved with tattoo imagery is reminiscent of both Zack’s aesthetic and his illicit lifestyle
4. Tell us about the exhibition “Nature Morte” at The Hole, New York, NY.
I am thrilled to have been included in this epic exhibition. I really think Kathy Grayson’s vision came through clearly with this impressive install and selection of works. I made my largest sculpture to date, with the help of Jefferson Nelson, during the pandemic — a large scale, three part floor piece entitled Epic Pandemic Phoenix Too (2020), but I call her ‘Dragon” for short (and you can too). In the style of my work, this piece is a modern day chimera ~ made up of various beasts both real and imagined. She was in a three month exhibition called “Friends and Friends of Friends” at the Schlossmuseum in Linz, Austria and it was fun debuting her in NYC in Nature Morte.
Here is an excerpt of the press release from The Hole for this show:
“For our yearly thematic group exhibition we present “Nature Morte”… featur[ing] 60 artists…whose works challenge the traditional elements of still life, leading viewers into the uncharted territory of our dark concrete forest. In 2021 the still life genre is impacted by not just the transience of life but by the impending global catastrophe that promises the end of all life.
Responding to the climate crisis in disparate ways, the artists in Nature Morte depict disease, death and dark nature—the animals are taxidermied and the fruits inedible.
When pondering death in the 17th century, audiences looked at skulls, blown out candles, dead animals, flowers and fruits…Today we gaze upon much of the same, plus melting mini-fridges, sliced up butterflies, flooding, cigarette butts and mylar balloons. Collectively, the works in Nature Morte contemplate death at a time when humanity’s doom is realistically into view…”
5. Your work is both beautiful and macabre ~ why do you work with this aesthetic?
My work involves meditating on how the natural world influences myth, pop culture and pulp/horror vernacular. I’m influenced by my experiences of the wilderness that we live in or visit, as well as the one that lives inside us. Also I’m always chasing things that barely seem acceptable (to others)…’Forbidden Imagery’ as a close friend once said to me. I like to find beauty in the unexpected. I think there is an exciting energy when art rides the cusp of being terrifying and beautiful and a little bit sexy. I like to surprise both the viewer and myself with new notions of what is beautiful and worth looking at.
6. How does the city you are living and working influence you and the art you make?
Speaking of the wilderness! New York City is an amazing place to be as an artist because one is surrounded by exceptional art and, there are quality gallery and museum exhibitions happening all the time. Also, I find that the majority of the artists here work really hard and that is both inspirational and contagious.
7. What is your dream project? Is there anything else you would like to mention?
A dream project is to show my work in one of the world’s most ancient cities, a region that founded so much of the mythology that inspires my work. I am very much looking forward to an upcoming solo show I have in Athens, Greece at Allouche Benias Gallery, early next year. I’m also excited about a two person show I have this fall with Max Maslansky (@bathos_country on instagram) at a new gallery opening in Marfa, Texas called JEFF. More is in the works. Stay tuned!
