More Than Portraits by Ronald Jackson

American artist, Ronald Jackson, gives us portraiture of a different kind. His subjects stare point blank at you, their faces covered by masks etched with depictions of nature - plants and flowers. The masks hide their experiences, their wants, their challenges and triumphs. But their gazes tell you how much those experiences have shaped them.

Ronald has mentioned that he got some of his inspiration from when he would look at pictures of the fallen during his military career. Each person he saw and reflected on had a story and he wondered about that story, much as he urges us to wonder about the stories of the people he paints. But he also urges us to look within, to examine our own portraitures and reflect on our own experiences and stories as we view his work.

The artist also celebrates his history and that of his family in each creation - celebrating the farming culture of Arkansas where he’s from, and celebrating Black landownership, which certainly wasn’t easy to come by given Black history. So in a way, it is a celebration of how far Black Americans have come, and the sacrifices (e.g. boycott activities and other community advocacies) that have made such wins possible.

See some of our favorite works below.