Artist Bio

Mary A. Jackson is an abstract painter. She has been drawing and painting since childhood, becoming serious during high school under the mentoring of Susanne Dassel of Dassel Art Academy in Woodbridge, VA. Mary attended Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Richmond where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Printmaking in 2005. Her understanding of media and work as an artist was greatly influenced by the late Richard Carlyon and the passionate expressionism of her professor Javier Tapia. After spending a semester in the southwest learning outdoor leadership, she was inspired by the experience and memory of wilderness as her painting took on a focus of nature and climate change (such as melting glaciers and upending the romanticization of place). Giving birth to her first son shortly after her undergraduate studies, her art was then shaped by the femininity and nature of pregnancy and motherhood. 

While in undergrad, Mary began a career in outdoor and experiential education and then moved to the west living in both Colorado and Washington state. Through her career, she has worked and research abroad, learning from many cultures and landscapes from the Brazilian Amazon and glaciated peaks of the Andes to the high mountain Himalayan regions, jungles, and ruins of Southeast Asia, to Kilimanjaro and the river deltas of Botswana. These travels to over 30 countries infused her creative process as she turned to the written word and earned both a Masters and Doctorate degree in the field of environmental humanities and sustainability from Prescott College in 2010 and 2017. Her research examined the theoretical basis of her early artwork, seeking to understand the meaning and embodiment of place and experience, specifically focusing on the Khumbu region of the Nepali Himalaya. She integrated the creative process in her research methods such as visual ethnography (photography and drawing) and written vignettes developing a methodology and tools for understanding the relationships of humans and more-than-humans in wilderness spaces. She continues to work as an educator, mentoring and instructing graduate students in the fields of adventure and experiential education, always seeking to include creativity in her teaching. 

While the time for visual arts was limited during her graduate studies, she began to once again immerse herself in painting after graduate school. The untimely death of her husband in early 2018 completely shifted her creative and professional focus. Her creative process took on a different tone as her work began to meld grief with her past experiences and skills. Her artwork became an examination of her anguish and bereavement. She currently lives in Golden, Colorado and is focused on painting full time while keeping a small teaching load and writing. She plans to continue to explore themes of grief, nature, and experience in both watercolor and oil paints.