Bill Jackson
Auditioning the World
A Retrospective
January 30 - February 19, 2021
This exhibition concentrates on the last 20 years of Bill Jackson’s photography. During this time he emerged as a photographer with a singular focus on the abstract image.
He often commented that he was not a story teller, not a documentarian, but a photographer seeking images with the power and creativity of late 20th century painting and music making.
Bill Jackson’s education in history and philosophy (Monteith College, Wayne State University, 1967), gave him the confidence to become his own photography teacher, enlisting Cy Twombly, Ellsworth Kelly, Anselm Kiefer, Sean Scully, Robert Motherwell and Phillip Glass as virtual mentors. With these masters he honed his intuitive eye, pursuing a disciplined study of Line, Pattern & Repetition and Color & Shape. This exhibition includes a few images of these artists’ works to provide a lens for viewing Jackson’s photography as he often viewed it.
While Bill adhered to that old Abstract Expressionist maxim that the image should speak for itself, he couldn’t resist a few witticisms and metaphors in the titles. Tolstoy’s War and Peace as enacted by a Field of Cornstalks, When a Dragon Sheds Its Skin, Koi and Panic Attack are a few of my favorites. To me, this play between the erudite and “the twinkle in the eye” characterize both the man and his work.
—Meighen Jackson, January 2021
SHAPE & COLOR
By simplifying his palette, keeping it reduced to a few colors or none at all, Jackson emphasizes the tonal and graphic qualities of his photographic images.
— Deidre Greben (former managing editor of ARTnews magazine)
PATTERN & REPETITION
Bill Jackson’s love of contemporary classical composers (Phillip Glass, John Cage, John Adams…) and Detroit jazz had a deep influence on his work, particularly in his use of pattern and repetition. His photography is often compared to music as in this quote from Deidre Greben, (the) forms bring to mind…a series of musical notes climbing up and down a staff. The musicality of these images relates them to the melodic hieroglyphic compositions of Paul Klee….
Jackson found a virtual mentor in another music lover, Robert Motherwell, whose use of repeating forms and rhythmic composition resonated with Bill’s own aesthetic.
“I use a camera to create semi-abstract images. They are sparse indications of what might be, without the certainty of what is. The first thing I do is to audition the world: ‘Nope, Nope, Nope, Maybe, YES!’
I hope my prints encourage slow contemplation rather than quick praise. The person who looks for a while nods and then perhaps says, ‘Ah ha,’ probably feels what I felt when I first saw the image.”
—BILL JACKSON, 2016