Toxic Culture Too: A solo exhibition from Dr Matthew Meredith Jackson
Dr. Matthew Meredith Jackson PhD work will be featured in the new solo exhibition Toxic Culture Too.
Toxic Culture Too is a return to themes from a previous solo exhibition Toxic Culture for painter Dr Jackson.
Dr. Jackson is an openly queer, transgender HIV+ artist with an arts career spanning three decades.
Jackson’s painting practice focuses primarily on identity and social politics, utilising portraiture, political pop art and agitprop techniques to convey meaning.
Born from the inherent frustration of living within the absurdity of late stage capitalism. Turning their jaundiced gaze on the day to day accepted norms of Western society.
Jackson presents an often scornful yet satirical offering of visual allegories, using pop culture references and agitprop techniques to assault the senses.
“While the first Toxic Culture was full of rage and a call for change, Toxic Culture Too is the result of compassion fatigue,” Dr Jackson’s non-binary child Jack Jackson said of the works.
“The anger is all still there: the paintings speak of injustice, inequality, violence, prejudice, ignorance, and that pervasive greed we all know too well.”
“But with the anger is exhaustion.”
“Where Toxic Culture was bright and determined, Toxic Culture Too is frustrated that it’s still telling the same stories over a decade after the debut of its predecessor,” Jack continues.
“These pieces aren’t a call to arms, they’re a mirror, a reflection of apathy and resentment, a fear that things may never change.”
“It suffers the weight of the Cassandra Complex: speaking the truth about the future only for it to fall on deaf ears.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“But it is.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Aren’t we all so, so tired?”
Toxic Culture Too opens tonight – Wednesday 21st April – from 6:30pm at Stala Contemporary. For more information, head to Facebook.
Guy Gomeze, image: Time’s Up – mixed media on canvas 51cm x 40.5cm
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