BIO

All images contained within this website are the property of Luke Jackson, copyright 2008

 

 

My (abridged) Bio

I was born in Italy and raised in Wyoming by my sculptor/painter father and singer/songwriter mother.  My grand dad was an inventor and my great grand dad was a comedian.  I’ve got a lot to live up to.

My Education

My high school education took place in Wyoming, Seattle, and Maine.  I did my foundation in Florence, Italy at S.A.C.I. in 1998 and received my Bachelor of Fine Arts at UWE Bristol, England in 2002.  In Bristol I met my mentor Terence Wilson Fletcher, who taught at Filton College at the time, and studied under him concurrently to my Bachelors studies.  I continued studying under him after I graduated as well.   I have been living and working in New York since July 2004

My Point of View

My central motive when creating is to free myself from preconception and the tyranny of Meaning, i.e. the human impulse to categorize.  I believe that painting should not merely express the artist but also should ideally allow the viewer to derive several unique interpretations and reactions while simultaneously freeing that viewer from the perceived obligation to discover the artist’s original intent; something that often even the artist does not or can not know.  In short, Art says as much about the viewer as the it does about the Artist.

The only way to maximize the viewer’s ability to form their own interpretations freely is to free oneself, as the artist, of any illusions of exactitude when communicating non-verbally.  Even when communicating verbally (written or orally) what one says is often scrutinized and challenged.  This comes from one of the few basic, salient facts of our existence: differing points of view.  And so in my mind it follows that one can not reasonably expect a single exact meaning to be derived from a work of art, no matter the original intent.  If one can not easily convey one’s exact meaning in words, then how, in the naturally foggy and shifting meanings within the languages of the eye and ear, is one to attain exactitude?  For me, the answer is that it is impossible.  And because of this I believe that the artist’s way is that of meaninglessness; of unencumbered appreciation of and/or connection with something that one sees or hears,  smells, touches, or tastes.

No one has the authority to tell me what to paint or why to paint it.  Likewise, no one, not even I, can tell someone viewing my painting what to see and what to derive from their looking.

This may feel like I am stating the obvious but it is something that almost everyone overlooks in my experience and is my central feeling when creating anything.

My work is in private collections in England, Italy, Portugal and the United States.

I took part in three group shows and one solo show in Bristol, UK between between the years of 2000-2002 and one group show  “Who’s Your Dada?”, in Miami in March of 2007.