Project/Process Exercise-Haikus:
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Haiku #1:
FUCK NO I DO NOT LOOK LIKE WHOOPI GOLDBERG, NO I LOOK LIKE MYSELF |
Haiku #2:
INVISIBLE ME DEVALUED, STEREOTYPED YET SOLIDLY HERE |
NOT WHOOPIStudio photography, 22”w x 30”h, 2019- (in progress)
NOT WHOOPI sign, 2019. Image Credits:
Courtesy of artist.
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NOT WHOOPI Participant #1: Zoe C (2019).
Image Credits: Photograph courtesy of artist and artist’s collaborator.
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NOT WHOOPI surfaced in the wake of yet another instance of hypervisibility. “You look like Whoopi Goldberg” is an annoying phrase uttered by strangers who mislabel me as they attempt to locate me in their familiar. The most recent assault on my individuality prompted the exploration of this work beyond self.
I invite Black women with dreadlocks—and the similar experience of being designated a “Whoopi- look-alike”—to sit for an individual studio portrait photograph. They hold a custom-designed sign with the word WHOOPI depicted boldly and circumscribed by a red circle with a slash thru it—the universal symbol for NO/NOT. This project is in progress with multiple collaborators. The completed artwork will display a lineup of Black women who look nothing alike; their only common element being gender, naturally locked hair, and hued skin.
“Whoopi” also phonetically references the idiom “making whoopee,” a euphemism for sexual activity. Consequently, the NOT WHOOPI sign alludes to negating the damaging label of the universal concubine and hypersexuality often used to (mis)identify and objectify the Black female body.
I invite Black women with dreadlocks—and the similar experience of being designated a “Whoopi- look-alike”—to sit for an individual studio portrait photograph. They hold a custom-designed sign with the word WHOOPI depicted boldly and circumscribed by a red circle with a slash thru it—the universal symbol for NO/NOT. This project is in progress with multiple collaborators. The completed artwork will display a lineup of Black women who look nothing alike; their only common element being gender, naturally locked hair, and hued skin.
“Whoopi” also phonetically references the idiom “making whoopee,” a euphemism for sexual activity. Consequently, the NOT WHOOPI sign alludes to negating the damaging label of the universal concubine and hypersexuality often used to (mis)identify and objectify the Black female body.
A Constellation of Blackness: Rendering Invisibility, Hypervisibility, Devaluation, and Triumph
Hand-printed silkscreen broadsides on black Legion Stonehenge paper, black ink, white ink, and extra fine black glitter, 15”w x22”h, 2021
Installation view of A Constellation of Blackness (4 panels), 2021. Courtesy the artist.
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The word constellation is defined as a “group or configuration of ideas, feelings, characteristics, objects, etc., that are related in some way.” These silkscreen prints render forth related ideas and examples of my various accounts of invisibility, hypervisibility, devaluation, and triumph experienced as a Black woman in America. Building upon the concept of my initial and ongoing project--Language of Invisibility—this artwork presents black text on black paper along with strategically placed words in white to telegraph compelling, layered, and subliminal messages. The text is set in “Atkinson Hyperlegible,” a font created by the Braille Institute specifically to increase readability. I enjoy the paradox of using a font designed to improve legibility and comprehension to render nearly illegible text that illuminates previously unrecognized constructs.
This body of work was produced during my tenure at the 2021 Ali Youssefi Project/WAL Artist in Residence, at Verge Center for the Arts, Sacramento, CA. These four represent a portion of the first set in a continuing series of silkscreened prints encompassing multiple panels. |
Veronica Jackson, Portrait of the Artist with Frame, 2021, documented performance. Image Credits: Photograph by Maurice Moore. Courtesy the artist.
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Veronica Jackson's Artist Statement:
My artwork is autobiographical and responds to the travails of my ancestors. I’ve developed a multidisciplinary visual art practice built upon an interpretive exhibit design and architecture career spanning more than three decades. I tell stories using every-day objects such as felt-lined bulletin boards, clothing, hair, handmade paper, timecards, and text. My visual narratives respond to an environment indoctrinated to view me through a singular stereotyped lens, or not see me at all. I’ve created a body of work that constantly evolves as individual yet integrated projects are incorporated into its realm. The majority of my artwork is text-based and visualizes a racialized and gendered experience in America. My practice also investigates how Black women see, don’t see, value, or devalue themselves in visual culture, and how these attitudes affect our sense of agency in constructing our own imagery or endeavors to mark space.
Veronica Jackson's Project/Process Statement:
My artwork stems from the critical examination of visual culture. As an artist I record, interpret, and make aware the complexities in which humans exist and affect their social surroundings. As an architect and interpretive designer I creatively solve problems within virtual and built environments. My visual art practice is a combination of past professional disciplines, present lived experiences, and the cache of contemporary and historic research accumulated.
My artwork is autobiographical and responds to the travails of my ancestors. I’ve developed a multidisciplinary visual art practice built upon an interpretive exhibit design and architecture career spanning more than three decades. I tell stories using every-day objects such as felt-lined bulletin boards, clothing, hair, handmade paper, timecards, and text. My visual narratives respond to an environment indoctrinated to view me through a singular stereotyped lens, or not see me at all. I’ve created a body of work that constantly evolves as individual yet integrated projects are incorporated into its realm. The majority of my artwork is text-based and visualizes a racialized and gendered experience in America. My practice also investigates how Black women see, don’t see, value, or devalue themselves in visual culture, and how these attitudes affect our sense of agency in constructing our own imagery or endeavors to mark space.
Veronica Jackson's Project/Process Statement:
My artwork stems from the critical examination of visual culture. As an artist I record, interpret, and make aware the complexities in which humans exist and affect their social surroundings. As an architect and interpretive designer I creatively solve problems within virtual and built environments. My visual art practice is a combination of past professional disciplines, present lived experiences, and the cache of contemporary and historic research accumulated.
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