Oliver Lee Jackson

Lisson presents its first Los Angeles exhibition with painter, sculptor, and printmaker Oliver Lee Jackson. A Bay Area resident based in Oakland, Jackson builds his compositions around the human figure, a recurring presence that underpins his work's structure. This presentation brings together paintings spanning several decades of his practice with a group of marble and mixed media sculptures, a lesser-known but vital aspect of his oeuvre, most presented publicly for the first time. After initially carving marble in Carrara, Italy, Jackson took to sculpting sensuous figures from stone and wood, but often left the unfinished works aside as he ruminated over their final forms. In conjunction with other techniques, the sculptures have since become complex constructions of different materials, including fabric and graphite, dealing with figures experiencing compression or weightlessness. Across these works, gestural marks, carved forms, and shifting planes of color generate a vivid sense of movement and depth. Figures emerge and recede, sometimes clearly formed and sometimes fleeting, shaping a visual language that balances moments of clarity with ambiguity and invites viewers into a fluid, evolving experience.