Jackson O'Brasky
Photo provided by, Jackson O'Brasky
Meet Jackson O'Brasky
Jackson O’Brasky is a popping fresh new painter out of NY dreaming up places I want to go. Their imaginative worlds are chock full of fantastic, and wild ideas. Their works often include a delicate blend of nature and futuristic technology to conjure feelings of a world out of some 70s sci-fi flick. Get to know the artist in our latest interview.
A self-portrait by, Jackson O'Brasky
Would You Rather
have a perfect photographic memory, or be able to see up to one day into the future?
I would rather have the ability to see one day in the future. I think it would be useful. Having a photographic memory would be useful as well, but I think some things would be so horrible to remember, and eventually I think the accumulation of memories would make it impossible to do anything at all. Whereas if I saw one day into the future, I wouldn't really know that much more than anyone else, I would just have an extra day to react to everything.
Some questions with Jackson O'Brasky
What is your favorite dinosaur? Why is it your favorite?
On the subject of dinosaurs, I have no strong opinion. My favorite dinosaur is the one in my car right now. I think the Lystrosaurus is interesting. They survived the Permian-Triassic extinction, which killed 96% of life on Earth. The Permian-Triassic event involved massive amounts of methane and carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, so if you'd like to have an image of what kinds of lifeforms might conceivably survive the Anthropocene, look at the Lystrosaurus. It's basically a cold-blooded pig.
What drew you to the more traditional medium of painting?
I was drawn to oil painting because it was fun and in my opinion the most beautiful medium of painting. I think it has something to do with how the pigment is suspended within the colloidal mixture of oil paint. The light can penetrate the paint and illuminate the pigment both on the surface of the painting and just beneath it, which makes the luminous effects of glazing and scumbling possible. You can't accomplish that with any other medium. I also have a love and respect for the history of art, and the perfection of oil painting represented an epochal shift in the intellectual and spiritual development of the West. I think it still has a lot to say, and if cared for properly, oil paintings will be around for thousands of years. The internet could disappear tomorrow.
How would you place your work within the lineage of post-war and contemporary painting?
I see the history of art as a series of cycles that move between bullish, revelatory art movements and bearish, more conservative movements of capitulation and retrenchment. The High Renaissance was followed by the Mannerist period, and the explosive compositions of the Baroque period were re-interpreted by artists of the Rococo movement, for example. These cycles occur alongside the larger social forces within the cultures that produce them. In periods of economic and intellectual flourishing, we have Abstract Expressionism and Rock n' Roll. Obviously, what followed in the West is a period of stagnation that has lasted for nearly fifty years, and shows no sign of abatement. You see this reflected in the culture. In times of plenty, the elite are willing to make risky investments. Society is rewarded by the elevation of the new and the challenging of old assumptions. We associate this with the concept of progress. In a depression-- and we have been in a global depression for fifty years, despite what the cheerleaders for the new economic order tell us-- the elite looks to art for two purposes: to flatter their existing assumptions, and to launder money. Fortunately, this arrangement still produces beautiful and memorable art, but no great revelation. Transcendence is on offer, but it is a false transcendence. These periods of decadence and decline do, however, produce certain individuals who are able to see the truth of society and it is incumbent on them to reveal that truth, like Socrates, or Kathe Kolwitz or Otto Dix. In meme culture, I think we see an attempt to follow in the tradition of these truth-tellers. Memes, interestingly, are structured less as jokes, such as we understand them, and more as attempts to describe the truth as clearly as possible. There is a desperate urge to test and realize the contours of our reality, and meme culture fulfills that urge. The Joker, a cultural phenomenon whose recent popularity is due almost entirely to internet memes, is the best example: the Joker is the mask that tells the truth. Contemporary artists, particularly those who work in the medium of static, image-objects such as painters, have adapted the format of internet memes to their purposes-- witness Emily Mae Smith, Canyon Castator or Emma Webster, whose work draws on the format and strategies of internet memes, with the repeated, "lossy" imagery, often combined with text. This is the milieu within which I find myself situated. We are all post-internet artists in that sense, but I think rather than repeatedly depicting the novelty of personal computing and the internet-- none of which is novel anymore-- the task has become to tell the truth. What kind of society have we become, in the third decade of the information age? Data and information technology have failed to reveal and often obscured the truth. Artists and writers must make an attempt. Otherwise they are useless.
What was the best advice you have ever been given?
The best advice I have ever been given, and I have heard it in many forms, is to resist the urge to overwork, and to stop working on a painting when it has stopped at an interesting place, rather than when I personally consider it "finished."
What is the best interaction you have ever had with a fan of your work?
Once, I had taken it upon myself to make paintings very quickly and cheaply, and to sell them on the street for very little, usually around ten or twenty dollars. A little kid approached one of the paintings and was really taken in by it. I remember seeing art at that age that left a big impression on me. I wondered if they felt that way.
What does your family think of your work?
My family has always been very supportive of my work. Some of my friends have chosen between their family and their careers-- in that way, I am extremely lucky.
Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)
I would like to take this opportunity to share the second best advice I have ever been given-- country music is not bad or corny like I was raised to believe it was, and if you dig into it and find some that you're really into, it can get you through some really hard times.
