1944 - 2013
"The live mark, with its ′primitive′ energy and ′artless′ rawness is the essential ingredient of Roy Jackson′s paintings and drawings. These marks, unforced, intuitive and spontaneously generated are instinctively spaced and paced - ultimately reaffirming the surface, the ground, the size and shape of the image as a whole. Jackson′s marks can mutate from particle to cell, from line to shape, from wave to field. A mark can suggest a represented figure, initiate a more or less legible script, develop into a luxuriant scrawl or an abstract thicket spreading into a dappled all-overness.
The broad, airy configurations that Jackson creates are often evocative of nature. This is one of the most striking impressions when his works are seen in the context of his studio, surrounded by bushland in Wedderburn, New South Wales. It is not nature-as-a-picture that we encounter here, of course, but a sense of nature which is not external - which is coextensive with ourselves, including and permeating us." - Terence Maloon (Director, The Drill Hall Gallery ANU)
Roy Jackson’s work is held in numerous public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of WA, Newcastle Art Gallery, New England Regional Gallery, Wollongong Art Gallery, Manly Art Gallery, Maitland City Art Gallery and the Mosman Art Gallery.
Defiance Gallery is honoured to represent the Estate of Roy Jackson.