Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of works by Oliver Lee Jackson (b. 1935, St. Louis), the Oakland-based artist’s third exhibition with the gallery.

“What nobody understands is that it is possible to take inanimate things and place them so that they will make a kind of energy that will really change you. We tend to talk about aesthetics-the pleasing relationship of the triangle, the circle, and so on. But, the dynamic force of a work requires that certain shapes add up to a force which moves you.” - Oliver Lee Jackson, in a June 1982 interview with Jan Butterfield

Over the course of six decades, Oliver Lee Jackson has developed a singular visual language that blends abstract and figurative forms. Drawing primarily on works from the 1980s, the exhibition highlights the often monumental scale at which Jackson works, which invites the viewer to step inside his compositions, and engage with the material on an experiential level. Recognizable forms appear to emerge from fields of vivid color and gestural mark-making, as working flat, Jackson approaches his paintings from all directions, lending the works a certain dynamism. Motifs such as crouched and huddled figures, repeat across his works, though Jackson’s paintings refuse to coalesce into a singular narrative. Instead, they reflect Jackson’s diverse array of references—from Western painting and African creative traditions, to the structures of classical music or the improvisational nature of Jazz, particularly music made by those like Julius Hemphill or Marty Ehrlich, Jackson’s longtime friends.

These interests carry over to Jackson’s sculptures. First working in marble in the 1980s during an extended residency in Carrara, Italy, Jackson would continue to work with the material in his Oakland studio. In works such as Marble Sculpture No. 3, 1983, the human form is reduced to a planar silhouette, allowing the work to register as an abstract form, while simultaneously suggesting a figure in animated movement.

Oliver Lee Jackson first exhibited his work in the mid-60s in St. Louis, where he later became closely affiliated with the Black Artists Group, an interdisciplinary collective of musicians, actors, and visual artists. Beginning in the 1970s, Jackson would articulate his concept of the African Continuum, a lens through which to show the fullness and continuity of African creative traditions. Jackson relocated to Oakland in 1982, where he now lives and works. In 2024, the High Line, New York presented A Journey: Untitled I; Untitled II; Untitled III; Untitled IV; Untitled V, an exhibition of Jackson’s monumental outdoor sculptures. In 2022, his work was the subject of solo exhibitions at the Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO, and the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, CA. Other past institutional exhibitions include the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2019, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO, 2012, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, 2002, University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1985, University of California Art Museum, Berkeley, 1983, Seattle Art Museum, 1982, St. Louis Art Museum, 1980, among others. Jackson’s work is held in the public collections of The Metropolitan Museum, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego,, Museum of Modern Art, New York, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Portland Art Museum, Oregon, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Jose Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, St. Louis Art Museum, Detroit Institute of the Arts, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, among others.

Date:
March 7 - April 12, 2025

Hours:
Opening Reception: Friday, March 7, 2025, 6 - 8 pm
Tuesday - Saturday: 10 am - 6 pm

Location:
Andrew Kreps Gallery,
22 Cortlandt Alley,
New York, NY 10013.

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