KAY JACKSON: BUTTERFLIES & ZEBRAS

In general, environmental art is ubiquitous and difficult to define. As a rule, artists working on environmental themes guide us in our understanding of nature by focusing on the fragility of the planet and its inhabitants as Kay Jackson does in her new exhibition at Addison/Ripley, “Butterflies & Zebras”. This is only the artist’s most recent show at Addison/Ripley. However, it is certainly not the first to spotlight the natural world in all its beauty and hazard. The gallery has proudly exhibited her work for more than two decades.

Several years ago Jackson described her Malthusian paintings, then on display in the gallery, as representing “…my first “environmental” artwork which continues to provide an outlet for my concern about pollution, food supply and how everything is interdependent and relative to the number of people on earth. “ This show, “Butterfiels & Zebras”, continues that theme in paintings with titles like “Zebrafly Opus II” , “Sign of the Times” and “Vermeer’s Butterfly Opus I”. The artist’s fertile imagination and attention to minute detail, her deep regard for the denizens of Planet Earth and her wide knowledge of the work of artists throughout history is on display again with this body of work.

Kay Jackson’s work may be seen all over the world, in United States Embassies in such far flung countries as Tajikistan, Cambodia and Peru. Her work has been exhibited throughout North America, in Asia and in Europe and is widely collected by both private and corporate collectors as well as by several museums, including Smithsonian’s American Art Museum here in Washington.