Jonathan Paul Jackson

Jonathan Paul Jackson (b. 1984) 

Jonathan Paul Jackson is an African American Visual Artist from Houston, Texas. He works in all mediums of Art, including Painting, Sculpture and Illustration. At the age of 11, he completed his first large-scale painting, and by the age of 16, he was showing in coffee shops in the Houston area. Jackson has some formal education in art, but is mostly self-taught.   At the age of 19, he curated his first show with two established artists, painter J. Antonio Farfan and photographer Daniel Kayne. His fabric and stitched art was his first full series, which included 25 pieces, which was displayed at Cafe Brazil in Houston, Texas in 2006. In 2008, Jackson started curating art shows for fellow visual artist, putting his own art career to the side for a couple of years, but he never stopped sketching and drawing. In 2011, he returned to his art, producing a series of oil pastel works jazz greats, political figures and everyday objects. His other works involve experimenting in Neo-Expressionism on a series of action paintings.

His paintings range from a series of color studies or what he has come to call “Color Meditations , in which he experimented with color while researching the masters of color, Matisse, Warhol and Gauguin, he soon realized that it was not the colors they used to create the work but how they applied the paint/color to the surface that truly defined them as "Masters of Color." 

In 2016, Jackson began a series of paintings entitled Indigenous Contemporary. When he started studying different indigenous sculptures and cultures, he fell in love in with the meanings and the storytelling. To celebrate the new-found love, he created paintings of where his imagination went when was reading about the cultures. This particular exhibition of paintings is based on studies of various indigenous cultures, including African, Latin and North America sculptures and culture. What I want the series to accomplish is to create interest in the viewer to be more inclined to go spend more time in the artifacts section of art museums, because if we understand the art of the past it helps us understand and create art for the future.  

Indigenous Contemporary Volume 2 is the second installment of the series. In Volume 2 of the series, he adds technology to the process of creating the paintings, using Photoshop software to alter photos of indigenous sculptures and of my own paintings and drawings, then using a wide-format printer to make enlargements of the altered photos.  Applying these technologies, he wants to bridge the gap between the past and the future. If we understand the art of the past, it helps us understand and create art for the future. 

Selected Solo Exhibitions 

2019    African Contemporary, Fort Worth Community Arts Center, Fort Worth, Texas 

2018    Volume 2 2018, Cafe Brasil, Houston, Texas 

            Just Another Day, The Tipping point, Houston, Texas  

            Color Ways, Mid Main Art Projects, Houston, Texas 

            A Natural Curiosity, Flight Gallery, San Antonio, Texas

2017    Gimme Shelter, Private Eye Gallery, Houston, Texas 

2016    Untitled Exhibition #003, Tomo Mags, Houston, Texas 

2014    A Theory of Color, Mid Main Art Projects Mid Main Windows, Houston, Texas  

2013    When the Going was Good, Little Pink Monster, Austin, Texas 

2005    A Touch of Felt, Cafe Brazil, Houston, Texas  

Selected Group Exhibitions 

2019    NEXT: Three Generations of Houston Abstract Expressionists—Featuring Richard Stout, Ibsen Espada & Jonathan Paul Jackson, Foltz Fine Art, Houston, Texas 

2018    Shinrin Yoku, East Austin Studio Tours, Austin, Texas 

Long Live Bolm, East Austin Studio Tours, Austin, Texas 

Thanussiness, Flight Gallery, San Antonio, Texas 

Texas Aviary”, Reaves | Foltz Fine Art, Houston, Texas 

2017    Holiday Show, Reaves | Foltz Fine Art, Houston, Texas  

Wild Abandon E.A.S.T., Print Press, Austin, Texas 

Group Show, Lullwood Group, San Antonio Texas

            Tell me I Can't, SXSW event, Topology Gallery, Austin, Texas

            Galveston Art Walk, Senpai Gallery, Galveston, Texas

            The Blanket Show, Senpai Gallery, Galveston, Texas

            El Ricon Social Show, MKT Bar, Houston, Texas

2016    Contact: Two-Man Show with Andrew Schmidt, Topology Gallery, Austin, Texas

            Trust Me Daddy, Safe House Gallery, Houston, Texas

             East Austin Studio Tour, Topology Gallery, Austin, Texas

            By the Pound, Museum of Human Achievement, Austin, Texas

            Art Bash, Austin Art Alliance, The Pershing, Austin, Texas

            Group Show, Flight Gallery, San Antonio, Texas

            Locus, Alt Gallery, Austin, Texas

            Artifacts and Photos, Flight Gallery, San Antonio, Texas

            SXSW art installation, American Greeting Card Company, Austin, Texas

Meditations: Art of the African Diasporas, Texas Southern University Art Museum, Houston, Texas. Curated by Dr. Alvia Wardlaw.  

            Untitled Exhibition #003, Tomo Mags, Houston, Texas

2015    Collective Solid, Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, Texas

             Artifacts, El Rincon Social, Houston, Texas

2014    Group Show, Alonzo Gallery, Houston, Texas

            The Group Show, Little Pink Monster, Austin, Texas

2007    Black\Gold: Two-Man Show with Adrian Landon Brooks, Sucker Punch Art Gallery, Houston, Texas

2005    The Great Adventures, The Private Residence of Daniel Kane, Houston, Texas