George O. Jackson de Llano
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SEñORES DE LA LUZ
 
​PERSONAJES CLANDESTINOS ESCONDIDOS EN LA LUZ, COLORES E SOMBRAS DE LA OBSCURIDAD.

(Clandestine Personages Hiding in the Light, Colors and Shadows of the Dark)

The spirits come on sunny mornings to a salon made from crinkled up plastic  water bottles by English designer Ross Lovegrove, where they celebrate the drama and beauty of their beings, yearning to be recognized and appreciated. They love that I know they exist and relish the opportunities to reveal themselves by participating in my exploration. If you give them a chance and listen carefully, they will convey emotion, personality and tell you about color and light.

​They are recognizable to me because of the strong influences imbued in me by Mexican surrealist Alejandro Colunga and the late Houston artist's artist, Bob Bilyeu Camblin, whom along with Tamayo, Siqueiros, Rivera, Matisse, Picasso, Miró, Chagall, de Kooning, Paul Jenkins, Klein, Kline, Rothko, Turrell, Kapoor, Larry Bell, Ken Price, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Earl Staley, Terry Allen, Jesse Lott, Jr., to name a few, who taught and gave me the eye to SEE and recognize them in the myriad of colors of the moment...  Many also very much remind me of the dance masks that I encountered in my 11 year project to extract the essence of the Mexican indigenous festival as it existed in the final  decade of the millennium.

July 2020: Señores del Pandemico

​April 2020 Portrait Series

2017 PORTRAIT SERIES

GEORGE O. JACKSON DE LLANO'S PORTRAITS
​THAUMATURGY  
2018 FOTOFEST EXHIBITION AT THE CARL JUNG CENTER
 by FERNANDO CASTRO R.

​Portraits typically are depictions of an individual person in the medium of drawing, painting, sculpture or photography. However, not every historical age has found it desirable to depict individuals. Classical Greek artists like Kresilas (480-410 BC) arguably did not depict the individual Pericles in the celebrated portrait bronze statue that once stood at the Athenian Acropolis. Rather he carved the archetype of a strategos —not only a military commander, as some literature has noted, but a zeitgeist leader of Athens. Pliny the Elder said of said portrait, "a work worthy of the title; it is a marvelous thing about this art that it can make famous men even more famous." Although lifelike, an archetype is not exactly an individual; instead, it is an ideal free of the accidental imperfections that make an individual who he is. Hence it is an idealized form we have in our minds of how someone ought to look like given his personality, stature and deeds. 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.

In the context of Jackson's own oeuvre these portraits are the missing link between his abstract work and his ethnographic work; in particular, with his documentary work that shows the ritual use of masks in religious festivities. They reverse the interpretation of photography in the documentary mode in which the photographer acts as a medium between an actual scene he saw and photographed, and the viewer who can benefit from the visual information, to photography in the imaginary mode in which the viewer is invited to interpret imagery according to his own psychological inclinations. The portrayed subject in Jackson's portraits is the one projected onto the image by the viewer.

The viewer's projection of an individual onto a depiction is not that peculiar. It is a moot question how faithful the depictions of the pharaoh Akhenathen in ancient Egypt were. Those depictions were probably a distillation of how the pharaoh looked like, how he wanted to be remembered, how the artists convinced him he looked like, and how his subjects wanted him to look like. In the history of art it is widely accepted that the first known instance of the depiction of actual individuals who were not rulers were the Greco-Roman funeral portraits (circa 1st century AD) of the Fayum district, Egypt. These portraits do not appear to show the individual at the moment of their demise, but at some point in their lives that may have been judged to be their acme. As one probes one of Jackson's portraits, one may read into it a personality that is more exemplary than accurate, a psychological acme.

Some of Jackson's portraits transport us to paintings like Senecio, the 1922 series of paintings by Paul Klee; or Amedeo Modigliani's 1917 more stylized portraits like Blue Eyes (portrait of Madame Jeanne Hébuterne). Yet, as it is expected from abstract imagery, there is something more fluid in Jackson's portraits. That fluidity is akin to the multiplicity of perspectives in Cubist portraits (minus the geometric fragmentation) as is the case in  Pablo Picasso's 1936 rendering of Dora Maar. Faces in such cubist portraits may have noses orienting themselves in one direction while mouths and eyes point to a different one. That is what happens in Jackson's abstract works like Untitled Y.

Jackson's portraits do not denote specific persons. As was said above, they function more like psychological archetypes than photographic portraits in the documentary mode. Indeed, they fall off the tradition of photographic portraiture. They invite the participation of the viewer in establishing denotation by psychological association and detection. His abstract portraits may suggest a fearful, pathetic, or sinister character. At times they may even be taken to be several subjects in one form.

It may seem outrageous to propose Jackson's portraits as such, but it is not that farfetched. It is worth remembering Gertrude Stein's telling anecdote and the portrait Picasso made of her. The Spanish painter depicted Stein as a massive figure with clay-like skin staring blankly besides the viewer. Stein famously stated, "I was and I still am satisfied with my portrait. For me, it is I, and it is the only reproduction of me which is always I." To those who objected to her mask-like features, Picasso replied, "Everybody thinks that she is not at all like her portrait, but never mind, in the end she will manage to look just like it." George O. Jackson's portraits leave it up to the viewer to connect them with a particular person, or to themselves. They use the tools of color and form, brightness and shadow to propose an interpretation to the to propose an interpretation to the viewer. At face value, light, color and form are the substance of their difference and materiality.

Fernando Castro R.
Houston, 2017
Picture
GEORGE O. JACKSON DE LLANO © COPYRIGHT 2021. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • COLOR & LIGHT HISTORY
  • Portraits
  • THAUMATURGY
    • THAUMATURGY Essay by Anna Guerra
    • 2018 Fotofest THAUMATURGY
    • LIRIO MAGICO
  • Faces
  • Archive
    • Essence of Mexico >
      • MEXICANAS PORTFOLIO
      • PROPITIATORY FESTIVALS OF THE NAHUA GUERRERENSE
      • SEMANA SANTA EN MEXICO
      • Sma. Santa 1991 Pinotepa de don Luis, Oax.
      • Niño Fidencio 1998
    • MEXICAN ATLAS PORTFOLIO >
      • BLUE STAR EXHIBITION
      • GUIA de Fiestas Mexicanas 1993 >
        • ENERITOS 21
        • Señores del Verano SLIDESHOW
        • 040121 THAUMATURGY
        • 072121 Thaumaturgy
    • 2020 >
      • PORTRAITS LATE MAY
      • 20MAY PORTRAITS
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      • MARCH PORTRAITS
      • 11/4 PORTRAITS
      • ABRILITOS 1a. SEMANA
      • THAUMATURGY Essay by Fernando Castro Ramirez
      • ROSTROS Abril 2019
      • 10619 THAUMATURGY
      • 120 TM
      • 121TM
      • 127TM
      • 128TM
      • 129TM
      • THAUMATURGY
      • THAUMATURGY - Press Release
      • 13191TM
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      • VALENTINE
      • MURO
      • 3219 FACES
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      • MURO MORADO CON AMARILLO
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      • Homenaje al Franch Teekler
      • Muro II
      • CRISTALERO
      • 31919 NEW FACES
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      • 32819TM
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      • 32419 FACES
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    • 2019 >
      • AGONIA Y ECSTAGIA >
        • MH de YOUNG Museum - SFO
        • Jean-Michel Jarre in Houston
        • Texas Contemporary Art Fair, sel. >
          • FANTASY on Works by Anthony James
      • 10619 XX VISITANTES
      • 110619 THAUMATURGY
      • 31919 TM
      • 101419 THAUMATURGY
      • Rodrigo Rivero Lake at SFO Fall Antiques show
      • FATA MORGANA 7JUN17
      • 1230 IPHONE FATA MORGANA
      • FATA MORGANA 19SEP 5X
      • EARLY SELECTED PORTRAITS
      • 22419 Portraits sel
    • 2018 >
      • TIGRES
      • NUBLADA
      • CERRO ALUCINOGENICO
      • 0901-16 Señores de Septiembre
    • 2017 >
      • 18JUN FATA MORGANA
      • 24JUN FATA MORGANA
      • 4JUL FATA MORGANA
      • FATA MORGANA 1017
      • 1010 FATA MORGANA
      • 105 FATA MORGANA
      • 30JUN FATA MORGANA
      • 9JUN FATA MORGANA
      • 10JUN16 FATA MORGANA
      • 19JUN FATA MORGANA
      • DIABLOS Y DEMONIOS
      • VERDES
      • 929 FATA MORGANA
      • 921 FATA MORGANA
      • 923 FATA MORGANA
      • 924 FATA MORGANA
      • FATA MORGANA 913
      • FATA MORGANA 3SEP16
      • 7 JUN FATA MORGANA
      • CHANGUITOS Taumaturgicos
      • CHANGUITOS TAUMATURGICOS V
      • Changuitos Taumaturgicos 3AUG
      • 926 PORTRAITS
      • 929 Portraits
      • CHANGUITO ALUCINOGENICO 8AUG
      • CHANGUITO LOCO prts II
      • 106 PORTRAITS
      • 107 PORTRAITS
      • 109 PORTRAITS
      • Recent PORTRAITS
      • 105 PORTRAITS
      • 926 FATA MORGANA
    • 2016 >
      • CALAVERAS
      • FATA MORGANA
      • 922 FATA MORGANA
      • NARCISSUSES IN PURGATORY LOOKING IN THE MIRROR
      • EASTER PORTRAITS
      • 5JUN16 Portraits
      • CRISTALES
      • MAY 2016 PORTRAITS
      • CHANGUITO LOCO
    • Archives and Anamolies >
      • Burning Man 2017
      • Burning Man 2013 >
        • VOLADORES
      • Agave
      • Houston >
        • Jean-Michel Jarre in Houston
        • ILHUICATL 1011
        • HOUSTON PRINTS
        • POLO MATCHES JUNTEENTH16
        • PASSING RAINSTORM
        • LIGHTNING STORM 27MAY16
        • HOUSTON LIGHTNING STORMS
        • 63 ZZZZZZZ
        • HOUSTON FLOODING
        • SUNRISES
        • SKIES
        • STORMS
        • SPLENDOROUS WATERS OF BUFFALO BAYOU
        • CABALLEROS MOSCAS
        • QUEMAZÓN
      • Austin
      • San Francisco >
        • de Young Museum Architecture
        • IMPRESSIONS of the SFMoMA
        • TO CHINATOWN
      • Enfrijoladas
    • family-history-files
    • family-history
    • family-history-source
  • About GOJdLl
  • Contact
  • PLUMOSAS
  • RECENT ARTICLE about my work
  • Señores de La LUZ
  • 120722 THAUMATURGY
  • DEC22 PORTRAITURE sel
  • 010523 THAUMATURGY
  • DEC PORTRAITURE II
  • 20 DEC PORTRAITS
  • 0106-1423 THAUMATURGY
  • LT JAN THAUMATURGY sel
  • LATE JAN PORTRAITURE
  • Early Jan PORTRAITURE
  • 021323 THAUMATURGY
  • 021323 PORTRAITURE sel
  • St Basil, Philip Johnson Arch
  • MARZITAS TM I
  • MARZITAS II
  • MARZITAS III
  • Marzos I PORTRAITURE