Oliver Lee Jackson: Intimacies
Lisson Gallery, London, UK
Lisson Gallery presents Intimacies, the first solo exhibition in London by American artist Oliver Lee Jackson, marking his inaugural collaboration with the gallery. The exhibition brings together a selection of new and recent paintings that exemplify Jackson’s longstanding interest in the intersection between abstraction and figuration. Developed over a six-decade career, these works reflect the artist’s distinctive approach to painting, in which energetic marks, luminous color, and the human figure converge within dynamic, layered compositions.
Born in 1935 in St. Louis, Missouri, residing and working in Oakland, California, Oliver Lee Jackson taught for over thirty years at California State University, Sacramento, and was an influential figure in the Black Artists Group (BAG) in St. Louis. His work spans painting, printmaking, and sculpture, but he is best known for his characteristic paintings, creating immersive visual fields composed of brushstrokes, gestures, and textures that oscillate between the abstract and the representational. Within these fields, forms emerge and dissolve—what Jackson refers to as “paint people”—appearing singly or in groups, in poses that suggest movement or introspection: crouching, seated, embracing, or in mid-air. These figures are rendered in fragmentary lines or as spatial cues and are sometimes accompanied by visual motifs such as birds, flowers, hats, or shoes. For Jackson, figuration is not fixed but inferred, surfacing through the accumulation and rhythm of mark-making.
The exhibition’s title, Intimacies, references the encounter between the viewer and these elusive figures, as well as the physical proximity and materiality of the works themselves. Many of the paintings feature expanses of open ground interspersed with bursts of color, chalk markings, and thickly applied oil or enamel, guiding the eye across the surface in a choreographed flow. Jackson’s compositions are developed through a methodical yet intuitive process, with canvases laid flat on trestles or directly on the floor, allowing him to paint from all directions and maintain a holistic awareness of the image. This 360-degree approach is fundamental to his ability to construct spatial balance and visual coherence within a field of constant movement.
Throughout his practice, Jackson has returned to recurring gestures and forms, including figures that dance, recline, converse, or gather. In Intimacies, these motifs reappear in dreamlike states, captured through expressive lines that evoke both presence and ephemerality. While many compositions hint at joy, serenity, and kinship—evoking echoes of classical imagery such as bathers or nymphs—they are equally open to darker readings, suggesting fight, flight, or isolation. This ambiguity, grounded in the viewer’s own perspective and emotional response, underlines the experiential nature of the work. As a result, Jackson’s paintings resist linear narrative or symbolic closure, privileging instead sensation, perception, and the body’s engagement with the painted surface.
Over the course of his career, he has drawn upon a wide range of sources, from African and European art traditions to spiritual and philosophical questions, while consistently maintaining the figure as a central axis of exploration. The resulting works, though grounded in material and sensory reality, open toward abstracted realms of memory, presence, and human experience. His work has been the subject of major solo presentations at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2019), Saint Louis Art Museum (2021), and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2012), among others. His paintings are held in prominent collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
For more information, visit Lisson Gallery’s website here.
Cover image: Installation view: Oliver Lee Jackson, Intimacies, Lisson Gallery London (4 April –17 May 2025), © Oliver Lee Jackson, Courtesy Lisson Gallery.
Last Updated on April 9, 2025
About the author:
Maxim Foucquet is a curator, art critic, and contemporary artist residing and working in Belgium.
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