Stefanie Jackson
In 1977, I studied French literature in Paris. There, I came across Césaire’s Lost Body poems, illustrated by Picasso, and Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes. My artwork reflects their inspiration.
The conflicting demands of modernism and a commitment to négritude are reflected in my theme of dismemberment. Many of my figures are missing limbs, suggesting violence to the black body, or a spiritual lack of wholeness. Yet it also evokes a sense of endurance. I juxtapose disparate elements and fluid, overlapping time sequences to create an imaginary space to interpret lived experiences.
My paintings exist in a dream zone, provoking a break from reality. My paintings rely on introspection and a suspension of disbelief to transcend superficial looking. Every one of my paintings has a specific inspiration. The concept of surrealism, magic realism and negritude all work together. Growing up in Detroit, moving to New York, New Orleans, and now Georgia, I have experienced the Great Migration in reverse. As Langston would say, “I’ve known rivers.”
Stefanie Jackson is an American painter whose art deals with themes of African American history and contemporary U.S. politics. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Jackson received her BFA from Parsons The New School for Design in 1979 and her MFA from Cornell University in 1988. Currently, she is an Associate Professor of Art at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including those of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Georgia Council for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Award, in recognition of her life’s dedication to developing artistic goals, regardless of other personal or financial responsibilities. Jackson’s work has been shown at a variety of galleries and museums, including The Detroit Institute of Arts, her solo exhibition La Sombra y el Espiritu at the Robert and Sallie Brown Museum UNC, the David C. Driskell Center Gallery, the Georgia Museum of Art, the Harriet Tubman Museum, and the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Society Museum in Philadelphia. She has studied in both France and the United States, in attendance of several artist in residence programs.
