Visiting Artist Colloquium

media release: Discover the latest developments in fine art, craft, and design at our free public lectures by some of the nation’s most prominent artists, critics, and gallery and museum directors.

The Art Department Colloquium is a series supported by the Anonymous Fund and the Brittingham Trust. Faculty lectures are held every Tuesday and Visiting Artist lectures are held every Wednesday (Elvehjem L160) during the academic year, and are free and open to the public. Online at Zoom: uwmadison.zoom.us/my/artcolloquium

Alex Jackson plays with the foundation of human perception by challenging viewers to suspend their historical understanding of painting and actively participate in new explorations of color and meaning.  Jackson’s practice includes the use of the grid and the color wheel, commenting on how artists are encouraged to perceive and break-down the world into empirical measurements such as color, shape, and line. In turn, Jackson simultaneously confronts society’s infatuation in the categorization of an individual’s race, gender, and sexuality. A lexicon of characters, objects and spaces reoccur throughout his paintings, collapsing timeframes of the past, present and future.  

Jackson currently lives and works in the greater Philadelphia area. He received his BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015 and received his MFA from Yale University in 2017. He has attended residencies at Yale Norfolk, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Yaddo. Recent exhibitions include Chrysalis at Jenkins Johnson Projects (Brooklyn, NY 2021), and Earthgrazer at Steven Zevitas Gallery (Boston, MA 2023). His work can be found in public collections at The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Santa Barbara Art Museum, and the DeYoung Museum. alexjacksonartist.com