YOU ARE JULES
Works by Jules Jackson
MAY 3 - 31, 2024
OPENING RECEPTION MAY 3RD, 5-7PM
STATEMENT -
There are many Jules and I was the 300th. One is an artist, one is a lawyer, and one is a judge--and they are all defined by what they're not.
This ongoing body of work explores the universal human tendency to condense our lives into narratives. It follows a fictionalized Jules Jackson through the history that made him who he is, and the echoes of his future. What are the forces that created his values? His quirks? His ambitions? His many anxieties? A wide cast of characters drift in and out of his life. The images in this body of work blend fiction with real events, suggesting a story while refusing to nail down any specific plot-line. Is there a moral to this story? Only if the viewer imagines one.
You Are Jules investigates the forces that shape a person, including family lineage, environment, and random chance. It presents a thesis that the formation of a person begins before they are born, and continues after death
About the artist -
Jules Jackson (American, b. 1996) uses folklore and fantasy to explore the spiritual dimensions of transmasculinity and queer manhood. Through painting, sequential art and film, Jules investigates the conflict between nature and technology, centering relationships between humans and animals. In May 2022, he completed his BFA in Painting and Drawing at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Jules' visual research investigates human-animal transformations as a space of boundless potential that defies essentialist concepts of identity. His most recent body of work, Miraculous and Terrifying, is a multimedia narrative that draws a connection between the transformation of a werewolf and the process of gender transition. This series was exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art at UTC in April 2022.
He also co-curated the exhibition MASC at Gallery 1010 in Knoxville, TN in May of 2022, alongside friend and colleague Will Sutton. Jules’s work has most recently been featured at Wavelength Space, Stove Works, and the Association for Visual Arts in Chattanooga, TN.
In addition to his studio art practice, Jules is the Programs Assistant at ArtsBuild, where he helps to develop creative and educational programs. The most recent project he led was the reimagined Hamilton County High School Art Competition, a partnership with Stove Works, in which Hamilton County students were asked to submit artwork in response to what they had lost or gained during the COVID-19 pandemic. This competition will culminate in the exhibition Metamorphosis: Loss & Grace on display at the Hamilton County Courthouse in July 2022.
www.julesinspace.com