For Caroline Jackson’s debut US exhibition, paintings articulated in the artist’s identifying energy-packed brushwork and spirited bursts of unexpected color combinations are on full display. Inspired and unlikely intersections of form and color create depth and movement, implying architectural forms in flux. Constructs resembling thresholds, bridges, and intersections intertwine in vibrant surges of unresolved movement. Exceeding static compositions, the works’ ambiguous junctures ignite a kinetic energy that searches for direction with anticipation before surrendering to a shifting vortex.
Working in charcoal, oil pastels, and oil and acrylic paints, Jackson’s dashing lines form gaps of negative space that open to reveal patches of primed canvas or raw linen beneath. Through a process of diluting paints, applying in active gestures, filling in, wiping away, and adding more layers, the works visualize embodied rhythms that dance, chase, and explode far past paintings’ edges that attempt to contain brush strokes in vain. Patterned flows of prismatic networks morph, crossover, and layer to form ever-expanding transitional realms. Webs of playful, yet refined, color schemes carve out active in-between spaces that lack permanence, forego known destinations, and prompt possible paths with multiple outcomes. Compositions of constant flux manifest as undefined horizons, nebulous atmospheres, and evocatively ambiguous terrains. The boundaries that separate land and structure are permeable, allowing for fluid exchange.
Earthy tones blend with vivid otherworldly hues. Amidst the swirling pulses, intermittent bursts of warm, fiery reds and blushing pinks merge in chaotic, yet harmonious, choreography alongside deeper browns, blues, and greens. Varying mark lengths and thicknesses creates dynamic visual rhythms that mimic the ebb and flow of currents. Textures, rich and varied, convey the tactile essence of a world caught in a constant state of rupture. Marks shift between sharp and defined to soft and smeared, mirroring a fluctuating boundary of intermediate zones and resulting intersections.
Whether physical or metaphorical, such transitory spaces evoke impermanence. Architectural forms seamlessly meld with organic contours of the landscapes, dissolving distinctions between natural and built environments. Bold, impasto marks interconnect, fusing earth and engineering in a symbiotic rhythm. Glimpses of channels, veins, freeways, and traces of movement blur boundaries between the biomorphic and the structured. Suspended, without resolution in sight, and caught in a perpetual state of becoming, perhaps the work’s most soothing message resonates with the beauty found in transition, periods of growth, perpetual change, and the impermanence of all things.
