KEITH JACKSON: The Back Roads

September 10 - October 30, 2021

Public reception: September 10, 5:30 – 8 pm
The artist will be present, masks required.

Steven Zevitas Gallery is pleased to present Keith Jackson’s premiere solo exhibition, The Back Roads. The exhibition will run from September 10 – October 30, 2021, with a public opening reception on Friday, September 10, from 5:30 - 8 pm.

While Keith Jackson has made oil paintings since 1984, this is the first formal exhibition of his work. The largely self-taught artist draws his subject from childhood memories and a deep passion around his family roots. Jackson reflects:

“In my work you will discover earth tones spilling into cotton fields filled with white and pink blossoms and corn fields, glistening with golden tassels; you will see the dirt and gravel roads stem off from the main highway, lying below the clouds of dust swiveling in the foreground from the occasional car passing through.

Childhood memories of afros, hot pants, converse all-star shoes, and bell bottom pants describes the era in which these stories are centered. Growing up in southeastern Missouri was a hard life: working on the farm, chopping and picking cotton, detasseling corn, chasing chickens and hogs through the fields and gravel roads. My family and I lived in an old farmhouse with withering white paint and a tin roof, no indoor plumbing or heating/cooling system. We had to cut and chop firewood for our wood burning stoves and pump water from an old faded red hand pump with a wood platform surrounding it.

On Saturday mornings, we watched our favorite cartoons in the living room with panel covered walls and vinyl-covered floors --Transformers and Spiderman are some to name. On Sundays, we would get up early, watch our cartoons and then get ready for church, which was a small building with white faded wood siding and a steeple on top. After Sunday school was over, my two brothers, myself and three cousins would sneak out to go to the creek behind the church to throw rocks. Whenever we would go places, my dad would take the big green rocking chair from the porch and place it in the back of our pickup truck so my brothers and I could ride in the back. I remember my three cousins would often ride wheelies behind our pickup truck after leaving their house.

Memories of riding bicycles up and down these dirt roads, catching grasshoppers, frogs, and minnows from the overflooded ditches on the side of the road – all translating to a full life in a community where a young black boy could enjoy the natural riches surrounding him, even in its simplest form – not wanting for anything.”

--Keith Jackson

KEITH JACKSON (b.1966, Essex, MO) lives and works in Kenosha, WI. Most of Jackson’s techniques are self-taught and he has been painting with oils on canvas and panel since 1984. While working in home remodeling and as a highly skilled custom furniture maker, Jackson relocated to Wisconsin in 1985 to take visual arts classes. This is Keith Jackson’s premiere solo presentation and the artist’s first exhibition with Steven Zevitas Gallery.