BRATTLEBORO — “There/There” is an exhibit of abstract landscape paintings by Frank Jackson, made on burlap using the quick-drying medium of fresco. The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) will present two events in connection with the exhibit: a transfer prints workshop with Jackson on Saturday, July 23, and a conversation with Jackson and Sarah Freeman, the exhibit's curator, on Sept. 16.
At the workshop, Jackson will guide participants of all skill levels in creating transfer prints, a process that begins with inking a plexiglass plate, placing a sheet of paper over it, and drawing on it from the back. The image is transferred through the pressure of the hand and the drawing implement. The plate can then be printed on a printing press, which picks up the remaining ink and leaves a duplicate of the drawing, but in reverse. The end result is two artworks: a line drawing and its negative.
The transfer prints workshop will take place at Brattleboro's River Gallery School on Saturday, July 23, at 2 p.m., and is open to adults and teens ages 14 and up. The fee is $45 ($40 for BMAC members) and includes all materials. Space is limited, and registration is required. Register at brattleboromuseum.org or 802-257-0124, ext. 101.
On Friday, Sept. 16, at 7 p.m., Jackson will join BMAC Director of Exhibitions Sarah Freeman at BMAC for a conversation about “There/There.” The talk is free and open to the public. Space is limited. Register at brattleboromuseum.org or 802-257-0124, ext. 101.
Jackson and Freeman will discuss the artist's technical process and how it informs his work. The medium of fresco is a painting process in which hand-ground pigments are embedded in a thin, wet lime layer called the intonaco layer. To create the works featured in “There/There,” Jackson forgoes the structural layers typically used in fresco and goes straight to the intonaco, which means that he must work quickly.
“Fresco is a time-sensitive material, and the element of time adds an urgency to the process and nudges me to explore color, form, and space in a spontaneous way that is akin to the act of responsive drawing,” Jackson said. “The imagery, too, is developed from the act of drawing and my sense of intuition about building off the initial shape of the intonaco that I've troweled on the burlap.
“There are indications of bodies and landscape, but I'm more broadly working towards a point where there is a sense of time and space, indicating a distance between the viewer and someplace else. Light is an important component for me because it indicates the time of day and the passage of time, which, in my mind, also relates to the arc of connection I'm trying to make between the imagined and felt, and the real and tangible.”
Jackson's work has been exhibited at Tang Museum at Skidmore College, Williams College Museum of Art, the Shed, Blackburn 20/20 in New York, and Vox Populi in Philadelphia, among others.
He teaches studio art at Buxton School in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He has taught at Williams College and the Rhode Island School of Design and served as a dean at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California at Davis and a Bachelor's of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University.
“There/There” is on view at BMAC through Oct. 10.