George O. Jackson de Llano
MI FASCINACIÓN POR EL COLOR Y LA LUZ
Mi fascinación por el color y la luz comenzó a una edad temprana debido a un abuelo creativo que escondía caramelos salvavidas variados para que yo los descubriera en los lugares más inesperados. Los veo en mi mente en la base de un tobogán en la jungla de accesorios del patio trasero que había preparado para su primer nieto...
Veo sus colores en el sol, rojos mágicos, amarillos, verdes, púrpuras, los mismos que se ven en muchas imágenes de mi proyecto actual, fotografiando composiciones abstractas de color y luz refractados dentro de formas translúcidas.
Este proyecto comenzó hace una década cuando, inspirada por su brillo, comencé a fotografiar una lámpara de araña de cristal inalámbrica que colgaba en una ventana al este de mi apartamento en un rascacielos y que bañaba mis mañanas con una luz y un color hermosos y surrealistas. En esta sección, encontrará mis experimentos que exploran el color y la luz a través de la abstracción refractiva. Comienzan con la lámpara de araña, continúan con el trabajo con una botella en forma de calavera y llegan a mis experiencias actuales con botellas de plástico para agua.
Observador
For Jackson, many figures and concepts revealed in his work relate to his identity as a photographer of Mexican ritual. The resulting images reveal a luminous topography of jeweled peaks and valleys, converging to create faces and emotions that could be harkening from ancient Mexico. Jackson sometimes calls on his personal history and ancestry to inform his work. He spent much of his career as a photographer in Mexico, "attempting to extract the essence of the Mexican folk festival as it existed in the final decade of the millennium”. His decade long, (1990-2001) The Essence of Mexico Project, captured the traditional syncretized religious rites, dances, costumes, masks, and original ephemera created to provide context, of more than 60 indigenous cultures This project resulted in, Mexican Cycles: Festival Images by George O. Jackson de Llano, an 8 month venue in 2007-2008 at the Smithsonian Institution’s, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. and later a 3 month venue at the Mexican National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico D.F., in 2009.
His resultant 75,000 Mexican slide collection has been donated to and is shared by The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art, at the San Antonio Museum of Art.
Thaumaturgy demonstrates Jackson’s ability to control and capture color and light in its purest form, communing with its spirits while sculpting it in to meaningful shapes and patterns. Various materials are seamlessly woven in to his photographs as textures, bringing both deeper meaning and visual interest to the final image. Ten large-scale prints line either side of the Jung Center as the viewer approaches a flickering projected thaumaturgic image at the far end of the hall. Additional prints on metal and an installation of fine art portraits on paper are located in the side gallery.
“George O. Jackson's Portraits from his abstract Thaumaturgy oeuvre probe into the viewer's mind in search for an identification and recognition of his subjects. In a sense, they snap onto, at the point of almost pure abstraction, a historical cycle that may have started with archetypes, gone to the discovery of the portrayal of individuals, stylization, expressionism, hyperrealism, impersonation, etc., and the myriad alternatives of contemporary art.”
- Fernando Castro Ramirez
Curator/Philosopher
“... standing in front of these images, one cannot fail to experience personal and potent archetypal responses to the ‘expressions’ of these ‘personages."
- Anna P. Guerra
JD, MA, LPC
Depth Psychotherapy
Thaumaturgy will be on view at The Jung Center in Houston, March 2-30, 2018. This exhibition is presented as part of FotoFest’s 2018 Biennial.