QX featured the artist Mark Jackson last year when he held his exhibition, LOOKING OUT / LOOKING IN, at Espacio Gallery.
You can now see more of Mark’s work as four of his latest paintings will feature in the Tom Cox Gallery’s Open Call 25 exhibition this month. His works – Shy Guy, Lazy Day, Morning Glory, and Flaming Jude – all explore male vulnerability in intimate settings through a distinctly queer lens.
Mark Jackson describes his aim as always to remove the subject of a painting from a space where he feels pressured to be masculine – or what society considers to be masculine – and allow him to return to a more curious, playful state of boyhood. Hopefully, taking the viewer with him.
Curator and gallerist Trevor Read of Adorn The Common, who collaborated on Jackson’s show Threesome for Pride earlier this year, says “his subjects linger in charged moments: half-dressed, mid-scene, caught in a voyeur’s gaze. They’re vulnerable. Ambiguous. Sometimes fetishistic but always compelling. Jackson doesn’t offer answers—just questions that stick. Desire, shame, control, exposure—it’s all there, blurred at the edges. His figures aren’t just seen; they’re captured. Like film stills from a story you’re not sure you were meant to watch.”
The group exhibition will celebrate bold new voices in contemporary art. Selected from over 500 submissions, the featured artists span a range of practices and perspectives. Together, their work reflects the energy, complexity and curiosity of making art today.
Open Call 25 runs 5-28 September at Tom Cox Gallery, Crystal Palace. Private view: Thursday, 4 September, 6-9pm.
www.instagram.com/markjacksonarts
