Jackson Slattery: Bridges

In Bridges, Jackson Slattery presents two threads of his practice, large paintings of letters and smaller paintings of objects, which are connected by their titles.

Of the two series, one features paintings of light filtering through textured antique glass in frames. A subtle shift occurs when Slattery changes perspective and paints aerial views of objects such as fish and figs on the face of the mottled windows. For the artist, these additional items operate as personal motifs or proxies for specific people, places, and events from his life.

In the text-based works, Slattery continues his exploration into the aesthetics of letterforms utilised by various de-materialised art movements from the 1960s and 1970s. To make the series, he sourced typefaces and lettering from flyers and posters of performances and happenings produced during that period. He then re-ordered the letters to create short poems which are coded biographical references—similar to the figs and fish—known only to the artist.