Suzanne Jackson
1944– · American painter, poet and set designer
Suzanne Jackson (born 1944 in Saint Louis, Missouri) is an American visual artist who also works as a poet, teacher, set designer and gallery founder. Her career spans five decades, and her work has been shown in museums and galleries around the world. It includes painting, works on paper, prints and three-dimensional pieces, as well as poetry, theatre design and costume design.
Raised in San Francisco and later in Fairbanks, Alaska, she studied art and ballet at San Francisco State University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in painting. After touring South America with a ballet company, she returned to California and took a drawing class with Charles White at the Otis Art Institute. In 1968 she opened Gallery 32 in Los Angeles, a space she funded herself and which became a forum for debate and for emerging African American artists.
Her paintings are built from many thin layers of acrylic, a method she linked to the glazing of old masters, which gives the surface depth and translucency. From the 1990s she moved away from canvas and began using netting as a support, making hanging three-dimensional works. Her art often explores Black identity and nature without an explicit political message.
Jackson taught at several institutions, including the Savannah College of Art and Design, and her legacy lies in her teaching and in her role within the Savannah art community.