Abby Jackson (born 1982) is a British artist, Stuckist painter, writer and art activist.
Life and work
Abby Jackson was born in North Devon and lives and works in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
. She attended Somerset College of Art and studied advertising. In 2002, as an act of rebellion during her last year at the college, she made a large painting ''Foreign Policy 2000'' of President Bush's head on top of a bare breasted
dominatrix
A dominatrix (; ) or femdom is a woman who takes the dominant role in BDSM activities. A dominatrix can be of any sexual orientation, but this does not necessarily limit the genders of her submissive partners. Dominatrices are known for infli ...
whipping
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
on all fours.LeKay, John "Interview with Abby Jackson" Heyokamagazine. Retrieved 19 September 2009. The college threatened to fail her, but finally gave her a pass degree.
In 2005, Jackson joined the international
Stuckism
Stuckism () is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art.Billy Childish and
Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson (November 29, 1729 – August 16, 1824) was an Irish-born Patriot leader in Philadelphia during the American Revolution and the secretary of the Continental Congress (1774–1789) throughout its existence. As secretary, Thomson ...
in 1999 to promote painting and oppose
conceptual art
Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...
Tate
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
. Retrieved 19 September 2009. She phoned Thomson "out of the blue" about a year after leaving college, where she had been told about the Stuckists in a visual culture lecture . Her work was in the Stuckist show, ''"Painting is the Medium of Yesterday" – Paul Myners'', at La Viande gallery in Shoreditch in September 2005.
In 2006, she supported the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) campaign for artists resale rights, taking part in a protest in Whitehall in January, and being one of the four artist representatives to present the petition to 10 Downing Street.Abby Jackson on stuckism.com /ref> She criticised
David Hockney
David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...
and other artists, who were opposed to the threshold being lowered to encompass emerging artists. In a letter in ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'', she said, "A Bill like this will encourage young artists to keep going, even when they can’t afford a studio or a takeaway at the weekend. I don’t want money to go towards a lavish wedding, I need it to continue painting."
Jackson's college painting, ''Foreign Policy 2000'', had been exhibited after her graduation in the Wellington Club in London, where it was approved by both Arab clientele and
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst (; né
Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...
, a friend of the club owner. It was then stored under Jackson's bed, until her admiration for Brian Haw's
Parliament Square
Parliament Square is a square at the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster in central London. Laid out in the 19th century, it features a large open green area in the centre with trees to its west, and it contai ...
peace protest display motivated her in 2006 to donate it to him. Most of Haw's display, including her painting and other art work (one by
Banksy
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigram ...
), was later removed by the Metropolitan Police in a dawn raid.
Jackson's painting was then copied by
Mark Wallinger
Mark Wallinger (born 25 May 1959) is a British artist. Having previously been nominated for the Turner Prize in 1995, he won in 2007 for his installation ''State Britain''. His work ''Ecce Homo'' (1999–2000) was the first piece to occupy the ...
as part of his recreation of Haw's display; the recreation was exhibited as an installation, '' State Britain'', which opened in January 2007 at
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
and won the
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
later that year. Jackson commented:
:State Britain is a true metaphor of conceptual art, as it's fake. I feel that I and the other people who contributed to Brian's display are the original artists.
In 2006 she instigated and co-curated the first show of artists from the Saatchi Yourgallery website, ''Lost and Found'': this took place at the Brick Lane Gallery in
East London.
Her writing has been published in '' The Face'', ''The Hospital'' and ''Ditched''. In "Still Life v Real Life" in ''
Aesthetica
''Aesthetica Magazine'' is an international art and culture magazine, founded in 2002. Published bi-monthly, it covers contemporary art from around the world, across visual arts, photography, architecture, fashion, and design. It has a reader ...
'', she contrasted the different
responses of Stuckist artist
Wolf Howard
Wolf Howard (born 7 April 1968)Evans, p.36. is an English artist, poet and filmmaker living in Rochester, Kent and was a founder member of the Stuckists art group.Milner, p.80. He is also a drummer who has played in garage and punk bands, cu ...
and Luc Tuymans to the subject of 9/11: "Tuymans chooses to avoid his subject matter, whereas Howard, as a Stuckist, approaches his subject head on."
She said of her own work:
:I've taken elements from the childhood fairy tale and the contemporary fairy tale of the celebrity lifestyle, merging the two ideas into work such as ''Death of the Rocks'', which portrays the Disney Little Mermaid slitting her wrists.
She has had solo shows at the Adam Street Gallery and Diorama Gallery, and group shows by West Eleven Gallery, Artshole, Wimbledon Art Studios, Islington Arts Fair, Stephen Lawrence Gallery (in association with BBC Africa 05), and Peace Camp (curated by Bob and Roberta Smith). In February 2008, she is staging a joint exhibition, called ''Disney Heroines Committing Suicide'', with
Mark D
Mark D, born Mark Randall,Deedes, Henry ''The Independent'', 13 February 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008. is a British punk musician (guitarist and songwriter). He is also associated with the Stuckist group of artists. Mark D was born and spent ...
Image:JacksonOhWow400.jpg, ''Oh Wow!'' by Abby Jackson
Image:JacksonMySecretGarden400.jpg, ''My Secret Garden''
Image:DeathOnTheRope500.jpg, ''Death On the Rope''
Image:ShockAndAwe500.jpg, ''Shock and Awe''