ALAN JACKSON BIOGRAPHY
Alan Jackson is originally from Savannah, Georgia. He graduated from the University of Florida School of Architecture in 1975 and worked in architectural offices in Savannah, Beaufort, Kiawah Island, and Charleston. He has lived in Charleston since 1979. He is a LEED-accredited professional architect and formerly a partner in the architecture firm McKellar & Associates. He now has a private practice. He was a member of the Board of Directors of Redux Contemporary Art Center.
He is interested in abstract expressionism and minimalist artwork. His artistic efforts have developed out of his interest in deconstructing architectural drafting and rendering techniques and reassembling them into simply composed and precisely rendered non-representational works that contain elements of both drafting and painting.
A principal with McKellar & Associates Architects, Jackson began drawing because he wanted to clear his mind. Thus, he filled notebooks with doodles of abstract shapes until he got up the nerve to show them to his friend, artist, and gallery owner, Lese Corrigan, who encouraged him to go bigger. “I finally settled on a drawing format and found a pen that produced the line quality I was looking for,” he says. Working on a 23- by 29-inch Bristol Board, Jackson included elements of both hard-line drafting and freehand sketching in each composition. “The aim of the series was to examine texture, tone, and precision through line work,” he explains. With each piece, he began with self-imposed rules and graphic constraints, such as no intersecting lines.
As the work progressed, he experimented with different shapes, and with each completed grid, he discovered something new. “Many of the uninterrupted, straight lines are executed with a continuous vertical stroke—not unlike the vertical cut of a Japanese sword,” says Jackson. Continuing to experiment, he began adding curved lines to create depth and a sense of movement. In Horizontal, non-touching, straight, and wavy, his intricate markings evoke the interplay between air and water.
