Jackson’s workday begins with a bike ride through Brooklyn to his studio in Crown Heights. From there, he creates his beautifully vibrant gouache and acrylic paintings and the dynamic editorial and design projects he works on for clients including Google, NBC News and WePresent. "If I'm starting a new painting, I’ll do a small thumbnail sketch and then use a projector to transfer the drawing onto a larger canvas or panel,” Jackson explains. "This helps me preserve the gestures and immediacy I like about my sketches. If I refine a drawing too much, it can start to look tight and lifeless. Then I usually do a colour study in Photoshop, and mix each colour to match the mockup.”
Living in the city that never sleeps, and juggling deadlines for his paintings and illustrations, you might think that Jackson’s work would be inspired by this full-on lifestyle, and the energy that goes along with it. However, his artworks are far more an homage to his home state of Louisiana and the pace of life associated with small town southern USA. "I love Louisiana, it's so unconventionally beautiful,” he says. "All the characters and landscapes in my mind are inspired by the South—I guess I paint what I know.”
Jackson Joyce’s world of quiet contemplation
In Jackson’s designs, the fast-paced city lifestyle hardly gets a look-in. Instead, his invitingly-coloured images are full of figures immersed in their own worlds and thoughts; slouched over books in corners, lounging on the grass watching the sky, or contemplating nature. "I'm a very internal person, so much of my work is about daydreaming and the inner workings of the mind,” Jackson tells Wrap. "Time with my thoughts is important to me and to my art practice. When I'm really busy with work, what I look forward to most is time to just read and journal. I ride my bike to Fort Greene Park and just sit in the shade with a book all day.”
The colours of Jackson’s work are also far more reminiscent of the richly hued countryside of the southern United States than the more muted tones of New York cityscapes. "I’m obsessed with colour, it truly keeps me up at night,” he says. "Colour has the ability to convey emotion unlike anything else. When I find the perfect colour, it feels like finally remembering the word for a feeling that’s been escaping me.”
A recent project for American eyewear brand Warby Parker saw Jackson putting his love of colour to tremendous use to create 13-foot-high murals in the town of Providence, Rhode Island, just a couple of streets away from his alma mater, the Rhode Island School of Design. "It was a total dream project,” he says. "Because the art was so large, I really wanted it to be graphically eye-catching from a distance, but also have all this detail and nuance to get lost in as you get closer to it.”
Along with the vast hand-painted outdoor scenes, Jackson also created designs for the store’s indoor murals and window display. "The indoor mural and window display art all had to be printed, but it was really important to me that the art still looked hand-painted, rather than a vector print out,” he explains. "So, I spent a long time making these detailed paintings at a smaller scale, scanning them to super high-resolution, and compositing them in Photoshop.”
Talking about his experiences of the lockdowns in New York, Jackson reflects on the fresh nuance that the global pandemic has highlighted within his designs. "I've always made work about isolation, so it's strange to see work I've made in the past take on a different meaning,” he says. While the conditions of the pandemic have sometimes made getting to his studio difficult, Jackson remains optimistic. "I have my first solo show this summer that I'm already working towards. It won't be after this is all over, so it's still unclear what shape the show will take, but it's nice to have something to look forward to.”
Has the pandemic made him rethink anything else? Perhaps a return to the wide-open spaces of southern USA in place of the cramped restrictions of New York? On the contrary, while Jackson’s work may remain full of those boundless spaces and lush landscapes, he has found that the city retains its own unique appeal. "What's funny is, despite all the nostalgia I have for nature and the slow pace of life in the South, I don't think I'll ever leave New York,” he says.
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