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Aryel René Jackson (they/them) is a Black Afro-Creole, non-binary artist and scholar whose inter-disciplinary practice engages critically with art history, cultural identity, and the politics of representation. 

Drawing on both historical framweworks and contemporary discourse, Jackson explores how visual culture shapes and reflects societal narratives, with particular attention to marginalized voices and cross-cultural influences.

Jackson’s practice and research contributes to expanding art historical conversations beyond traditional Eurocentric boundaries, emphasizing inclusivity, critical inquiry, and the evolving role of art in shaping collective memory.  

This website presents two recent series, “Embedded Surfaces” (2024) and “Transmission” (2025), that reflect an interdisciplinary and materially driven practice. 

Embedded Surfaces applies visibility and opacity via layering of soil, archive imagery, and textile on panels built through repetition, negative space, and collage, resulting in fragmentation. Silhouettes and photographs of landscapes and historical and public figures become mingled with grids, patterns, and soil.

Transmission extends this process into printmaking and video, where works such as Re:Future combine image projection, sound, and performance to explore “call and response” as a visual and aural ritual. 

Across both series, Jackson explores speculative futures by treating soil and archival fragments as carriers of ecological memory and lived history. Their work emphasizes layering and transformation as visual forms of folding past into re-presentation. 



Archive & Exhibitions

CV 





Education
MFA, Transmedia and Print The University of Texas at Austin

BFA, Video, Photography, and Animation The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art




ExhibitionsResonant Landscapes: Sci-Fi Narratives and Historical Echoes
Ivester Contemporary, Austin, TX
2024

What it means: Iterations of a welcoming place
HOST Series, The Contemporary Austin, Jones Center, Austin, TX
2023

A Welcoming Place
Women & Their Work, Austin, TX
2022

Descendance
Jacob Lawrence Gallery
Seattle, WA
2021

Video Series
New Museum, New York, NY
2019

The Origin of the Blues
RISD Museum, Providence, RI
2017

The Blues Data Crop
Wave Hill, Bronx, NY
2016




Awards & FellowshipsJuried Time-Based The Future is a Constant Wake
ArtPrize, Grand Rapids, MI
2023

Black Spatial Relics Micro Grant
Black Spatial Relics, Philadelphia, PA
2019

Royal College Exchange Award
University of Texas at Austin, London, UK
2018







Teaching
Visiting Lecturer, The Princeton Atelier, Spring 2023, Princeton, NJ

Lecturer, Texas State University, Fall 2021-Fall 2025, San Marcos, TX

Lecturer, The University of Texas at Austin, Spring 2021





Last Updated 24.10.31