Jackson Lot Mural: Tomashi Jackson

In the fourth iteration of TUAG’s temporary mural series, exhibiting artist Tomashi Jackson presents Minute By Minute (Juneteenth in Five Points Denver, CO 2023/ Leaves Study by my Mother in COVID Isolation in Bakersfield, CA 2020), a wheat-pasted digital image on the side of the Aidekman Arts Center pulled from her painting of the same name. 

Composed of densely layered imagery, painterly color blocks, and half-tone printing techniques, Minute By Minute (Juneteenth in Five Points Denver, CO 2023 / Leaves Study by my Mother in COVID Isolation in Bakersfield, CA 2020) embodies themes of high contrast—of large gatherings against the backdrop of pandemic-era isolation; of color and material; and of collectivity and loss. The mural image at TUAG is only a portion of the original painting, further abstracting the image but also highlighting and condensing the mass of people—gathered for a ​2023 ​Juneteenth street celebration in Five Points, Denver, Colorado —contrasted against fragments of photographs of trees taken by Jackson’s late mother ​in Bakersfield, California ​during her final days in ​social ​isolation​ due to the COVID-19 public health crisis​. As a result, the work is a meditation on the mass loss experienced over the pandemic, the effects of which we are collectively, still very much processing. 

​​Minute By Minute (Juneteenth in Five Points Denver, CO 2023/ Leaves Study by my Mother in COVID Isolation in Bakersfield, CA 2020)​ is an extension of Jackson’s mid-career survey, Across the Universe, currently on view in the Art Galleries through December 8th. The project addresses the public space of campus while nodding to her artistic roots in community-driven murals—first as an assistant to Bay-area Chicano muralist Juana Alicia in California and then here in the Northeast in her earlier practice of depicting domestic laborers at large-scale on ​public facing ​windows​.​ For Jackson, the mural is historically and intricately associated with labor movements and collective action, the vital roots of democratic society. 

Minute By Minute (Juneteenth in Five Points Denver, CO 2023/ Leaves Study by my Mother in COVID Isolation in Bakersfield, CA 2020) is part of the exhibition Tomashi Jackson: Across the Universe, on view until December 8th.

Image: Tomashi Jackson, Minute By Minute (Juneteenth in Five Points Denver, CO 2023/ Leaves Study by my Mother in COVID Isolation in Bakersfield, CA 2020), 2023.

Generous support for TUAG programming is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.