Aryel René Jackson
A global story
Inheritance
Confuserella
Printmaking
Panels
Artist Statement
Curriculum Vitae (CV)
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©2025 Aryel René Jackson Studio
2018
18x24 inches
Chocolate loam topsoil, white chalk, burlap, silkscreen on linen, red chalkline powder, green chalkboard paint, black chalkboard paint on panel
"Grid Work" series (2018, 2020) engages with themes of memory, identity, and cultural retention within the diaspora, echoing Jackson’s master thesis “The (Next) Life of Property: Grandma Never Believed in Hell” and their exploration of "staged and performed archived memory." The grid, a symbol of imposed order and control, becomes a canvas upon which Jackson layers fragments of diasporic experience, reminiscent of the nkisi traditions described by scholars in reference to African American yard work and the use of creativity, where bundled materials in sculptural forms direct energies. Like the nkisi, Jackson's layered pieces hold a transatlantic cultural residue, a "charm" against erasure.
The grid itself can be seen as a manifestation of the "racist paradigms and hierarchical patterns" that Katherine McKittrick identifies as shaping diasporic geographies. It represents the systems of measurement and categorization that Dr. Denise Ferreira da Silva critiques, the “grids” that seek to contain and define. However, Jackson’s work disrupts this order.
The "Grid Work" panels are not static; they are dynamic spaces where memories and experiences collide, where the linear structure of the grid is challenged by the organic forms and textures that emerge from within. This echoes Jackson’s interest in gestures that disrupt grids and create circles, moving between linear and cyclical forms, reflecting the cyclical time in nature.
Jackson's layered images and mediums become fragments of a shared, though often unnamed, diasporic knowledge, akin to Glissant's concept of meaning transmitted through the exchange of objects and people. They resist the reductive tendencies of the "Imperial Archive," as described by Thomas Richards, which separates artifacts from their context, limiting understanding. Instead, Jackson's "Grid Work" embraces the remnants of the past and the ongoing process of "coming to consciousness."They are not simply representations of diasporic experience, but active engagements with it, embodying Da Silva's call for a praxis that destabilizes our understanding and leaves meaning open. "Grid Work" becomes a space for exploring the "demonic," in McKittrick's terms, the unpredictable and undetermined outcomes of cultural interaction and memory, a space where the past and present are constantly being renegotiated.