Zavier Ellis : SAM JACKSON - COLOSSAL YOUTH ( Part 2 ) March 27th

SAM JACKSON

Colossal Youth (Part 2)
PRIVATE VIEW Thursday March 27th 6:30-8:30pm
EXHIBITION DATES Friday March 28th – Saturday May 3rd 2014
GALLERY HOURS Wednesday-Saturday 11am-6pm or by appointment

CHARLIE SMITH LONDON is delighted to present Sam Jackson with his third one person exhibition at the gallery.

‘Colossal Youth (Part 2)’ represents the second phase of a body of work that takes as its starting point the topography of youth sub-culture, with the first phase being Jackson’s recent solo presentation at Volta New York. Influenced by both contemporary and historical high and low culture, Jackson draws here on the iconic photography of Derek Ridgers. Documenting street and club culture in the 1970’s and 80’s, Ridgers surveyed the vanguard of punk, skinheads and new romantics. The raw urgency and do-it-yourself attitudes embedded within these movements are mirrored in Jackson’s instinctively guttural paintings, where his portraits and figures are hewn with text that recalls rough, homemade tattoos and graffiti. The text represents a cognitive statement and a definitive point of reference while the subjects themselves project a sense of contemplative melancholy.

Jackson’s sexual paintings range from mildly erotic to graphically pornographic. They refer to the overt sexualisation of the postmodern era that manifested itself stylistically in the 1970’s in punk and fetish, since when such underground tropes have inevitably come to occupy mainstream culture, encouraged by evermore open media coverage; absorption into high street fashion; de-marginalisation of sexual minorities; and increasing prevalence of internet pornography. This evermore conspicuous sexuality is absorbed by Jackson and filtered from image to painterly surface, undergoing a shift where the transgressive is interwoven with a unique delicacy.

The subjects in Jackson’s paintings, therefore, derive from various sources, reflecting current tendencies in an image obsessed society in the internet age, where traditional notions of private and public access have been transformed. Images from Polaroids, magazines, video clips and the internet are used to explore the worlds of DIY tattoos, addiction, homemade and amateur pornography, fantasy, excess, youth culture, violence, Baroque and Renaissance painting, failure, literature and music.

BIOGRAPHICAL
BORN 1977
EDUCATION 2004-2007: MA Fine Art, Royal Academy Schools; 2000-2003: BA (Hons) Fine Art (First Class), Middlesex University

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2014: The Harsh Reality: Modern & Contemporary British Painting, The Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, Norwich; 2013: Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis, Simon Rumley & Rebecca Wilson),
B1, Victoria House, London Porträts, Galerie Rigassi, Bern; 2012: The Serpent’s Tail Witzenhausen Gallery, Amsterdam; 2011: The Fearful Joy, CHARLIE SMITH LONDON (Solo); Everyday (curated by Tony Benn), Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge; 2010: Pokerface, Koraalberg Contemporary Art Gallery, Antwerp; Ray Lowry London Calling, Idea Generation, London (touring to New York & Tokyo); New British Painting (curated by Zavier Ellis & Pilvi Kalhama), Gallery Kalhama & Piippo, Helsinki; 2009: Vas Deferens, CHARLIE SMITH LONDON (Solo); British Art Now (curated by Edward Lucie-Smith), Werkstatt Galerie, Berlin; The Cabinet, BRAUBACHfive, Frankfurt (Solo); A Stain upon the Silence (curated by Chris Shilling, Chris Page & Gaboy Gaynor), St. Martins College of Art, London; Anticipation (curated by Kay Saatchi & Catriona Warren), Selfridges, London; UK Best Graduates, White Box Gallery, New York; The Past is History (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley), Changing Role Gallery, Naples & Rome; New London School (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley), Mark Moore Gallery, LA ; The R.A.5, Lennon Weinberg, New York

COLLECTIONS Javier Baz, Denver; Carlos Fragoso, New York; Glen Luchford, New York; David Roberts, London; Sir Norman Rosenthal, London; Kay Saatchi, London
Private collections in Belgium, Colombia, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom & United States