THOMAS JACKSON
Thomas Jackson was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. After earning a B.A. in History from the College of Wooster, he spent time as an editor and book reviewer in New York. It was his particular interest in photography books that led him to pick up a camera, at first shooting street scenes, then landscapes, and finally the installation work he does today. Thomas Jackson’s photography has been shown at The Center for Book Arts in New York, the Governors Island Art Fair, the Gallery at Eponymy in Brooklyn and Industria Superstudios in New York. He was named one of the Critical Mass Top 50 in 2012, and won the “installation/still-life” category of PDN’s The Curator award in 2013. He lives in San Francisco.
The hovering installations featured in this ongoing series of photographs are inspired by self-organizing, "emergent" systems in nature such as termite mounds, swarming locusts, schooling fish and flocking birds. The images create an interplay between the natural and the manufactured and the real and the imaginary. At the same time, each image is an experiment in juxtaposition. By constructing the installations from unexpected materials and placing them where they seem least to belong, Jackson aims to tweak the margins of our visual vocabulary, and to invite fresh interpretations of everyday things.
