Jackson Martin Collapses and Redeems
I have known the Tennessee -based sculptor Jackson Martin for a long time now. I have seen him go through many of the growing pains artists go through on their way to finding something they can hold on to and stick with, and I have seen him bury that in the rich, fertile earth and walk towards something else.
Jackson has been maintaining his own site for a while now, and sometimes I am out of the loop about his new work, so I was extremely surprised (pre-age-of-instant-gratification-savor-the-world-when-it-hits-you sort of surprised) when I saw that he had not only one, but three new projects on his website. The most recent is called Collapse (Until Death Do Us Part) and is a textile experiment where Jackson takes his wedding suit, unstitches it to create an exact pattern and makes two copies, one in tarp and one in burlap.
Though Jackson has used burlap and sometimes tarp as materials in previous work, and has been known to be quite adept at clothing design, this is the first example of using them together. He is usually working in even more organic materials like grasses and trees and continues the tradition with another recent project called It Will Continue To Grow, No Matter What I Do, which antagonizes Giuseppe Penone‘s piece Continuerà a crescere tranne che in quel punto. I love the statement.
I suggest checking out some of Jackson’s work, the photography alone is beautifully done.
