Stefanie Jackson is an American painter whose art deals with themes of African American history and contemporary U.S. politics. __TOC__

Life and education

Jackson was born in Detroit and received her BFA from

Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...

in 1979 and her MFA from Cornell University in 1988. She is currently an associate professor of drawing and painting at the

Lamar Dodd School of Art The Lamar Dodd School of Art is the art school of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia, United States. History In 1927, the University of Georgia’s board of trustees voted to esta ...

at the University of Georgia.

Paintings and influences

Jackson's work has been shown in a variety of galleries including the Stone Center for the Arts at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The African American Museum (Dallas), and the Harriet Tubman Museum and the

Afro-American Historical and Cultural Society Museum The Afro-American Historical and Cultural Society Museum is located is on the upper floor of the Greenville Branch of the Jersey City, New Jersey Public Library, its collection is dedicated to the African American experience. The museum has galler ...

in Philadelphia. Jackson has received a Special Projects Grant from the

National Endowment of the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

and several individual grants from the Georgia Council for the Arts. The

Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation was established in 1976. It is an American nonprofit organization that provides funding for the arts. History The Gottlieb Foundation was established after Adolph Gottlieb’s death in 1974. Esther Gottlie ...

gave Jackson an award in 2002. Jackson's paintings draw on her own life experience as well as broader issues of social justice. Her influences span a broad range of styles including surrealism and African American literature. One major influence on Jackson's work is Southern

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

music and culture. Much of Jackson's work deals with major events in U.S. and African American history. Her art has responded to the Atlanta Race Riots, the destruction of New Orleans by

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

, issues of public housing in Detroit and New Orleans, and the French colonial history of New Orleans. More personally, Jackson draws inspiration from family tragedies, including losing her cousin to violence in Detroit, which is commemorated in the painting ''Little Girl Blue''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Stefanie 20th-century American painters African-American women artists Painters from Detroit Cornell University alumni University of Georgia faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American women academics African-American painters 21st-century African-American artists 21st-century African-American women Parsons School of Design alumni 21st-century American painters 20th-century American women