“untitled”
porcelain
9" x 14" x 14"

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Nikki Jackson was born and raised in England. Her father worked in the great London museums in South Kensington, giving her unparalleled exposure to the history of world art. She studied at Bath Academy of Art, and Bath College of Higher Education, before being awarded a scholarship to study with Paul Soldner, in California.

She has taught in California, Alabama and New Orleans before joining the faculty at NOCCA/Riverfront in 1999. She has been a recipient of a Gane Travel Scholarship, and Surdna Foundation Fellowship. Her work has been exhibited nationally and in Europe. This is her first exhibition at the gallery.

IN HER OWN WORDS

“Water: such a powerful, paradoxical element.”

“The images have been as indelible as the tidemarks I drive by each day.”

I work in New Orleans, but I live on a hill in the country, a mile up a gravel road. It’s the toenail of the foothills of the Appalachians. When the last glacier retreated from this area, it left behind a sampling from every geological strata and formation encountered on its long crawl south. These small polished remnants form another tidemark recorded in the gravel pits below the pines and ankle-deep on my road.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve picked up rocks on walks. My dad did too. This past year the rocks that sought my hands have been formed and altered by water… as I have been.”

“This body of work springs from those small pebbles, and the hollows worn in the clay ditches that mark the passage of water as it flows downhill.”

Through repetition of danger we grow accustomed to it. Water sets the example for the right conduct under such circumstances. It flows on and on, and merely fills up all the places through which it flows; it does not shrink from any dangerous spot nor from any plunge, and nothing can make it lose its own essential nature. It remains true to itself under all conditions ….. In danger all that counts is really carrying out all that has to be done – thoroughness – and going forward, in order not to perish through tarrying in the danger.

I Ching, hexagram 29 – The Abysmal (Water).
Richard Wilhelm/Cary Baynes translation. Princeton University Press.