Capryka Hunt

Suzanne Jackson, born in 1944 in St. Louis, MO, is a multifaceted artist, poet, set designer, gallery owner, and dancer, who has worked in television, film, and theater for over five decades. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. Jackson studied art and ballet at San Francisco State University and received a BA in painting. In 1967 she relocated to Echo Park, where she taught and worked as an artist while studying drawing at Otis Art Institute with Charles White. From 1969 to 1970, Jackson ran Gallery 32 in her studio in the Granada Buildings near McArthur Park, as a space to engage with her peers.

Throughout her career, spanning more than five decades, Jackson has engaged in several genres, including drawing, painting, printmaking, bookmaking, poetry, dance, theater, and costume design. Her paintings from the 1960s and 70s are notable for their multiple layers of acrylic wash on canvas, creating ethereal paintings that dissolve boundaries between the elements depicted. She received an MFA in theater design from Yale University in 1990.

Suzanne Jackson, 2019. Photograph by Tim Doyon

In an interview, Jackson revealed that her artwork and influences trace back to her time in New York and her studio there. She shared how she met Malcolm Lubliner, a photographer who introduced her to Charles White, an art instructor who started at the Chicago Art Institute. When asked if it was challenging for a woman artist to be recognized and make connections, Jackson replied that her focus was mainly on acquiring a studio space and that she was not familiar with the art scene. She mentioned that her pieces were not highly priced, and the people who owned her work had the power to decide what was shown in museums. Jackson noticed that galleries did not exhibit many women artists, especially women of color, which led her to hold an exhibition for women titled "YOU'VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY: THE SAPPHIRE SHOW."

Jackson has received numerous awards throughout her career, including the Anonymous Was a Woman grant (2021), NYFA Murray Reich Distinguished Artist Award (2020), and Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant (2019). She retired officially from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2009, where she served as an adjunct professor until 2013, teaching introductory art history courses, including African American Art History. Jackson continues to create art and exhibit as part of Savannah's artistic community.

References

"A Conversation with Suzanne Jackson by Lyn Kienholz," uploaded to YouTube by Metropolitan Arts Conversations, January 3, 2013.

Jackson, Suzanne. Animal. Los Angeles: Continuity Transcripts and Features, 1978.

Karen Anne Mason, "Interview of Suzanne Jackson," August 1992, African American Artists of Los Angeles, Oral History Program, University of California, Los Angeles. Transcript, Charles E. Young Research Library, Department of Special Collections, UCLA.

To cite: Hunt, Capryka. “A Profile of the Artist Suzanne Jackson.” Journal of Art and Theatre, vol. 2.1 (2023): 7-8