‘Emotion and history through color': the activism of Tomashi Jackson's art

The Guardian

3 days ago

While the Black artist Tomashi Jackson was pursuing her MFA from the Yale School of Art in the 2010s, she had a revelation about how our perception of color works. While studying color theory, she had gone back to the basics, rereading foundational texts from her art education – Jackson realized that the way these books talked about color resembled how Americans talk about race.
'I was seeing a lot of similarities in the way color phenomena is described as compulsory,' she said in an interview, 'as against one's will, and potentially discomforting or panic-inducing. Concepts of color are experienced as chromatic, and they are also social.'
These insights into color theory occurred within larger explorations Jackson was making at the time into what she called 'the machinery that was surrounding me' – that would include the education system, the way public space is conceived of in America, and larger historical narratives around racial justice.
Jackson's particular way of synthesizing all of these ideas into striking works of art can currently be experienced at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, for the artist's mid-career survey Across the Universe. Going back to 2023, this major show has toured Denver, Philadelphia and Boston, landing now in Houston for almost an entire year.
The paintings and mixed media pieces in Across the Universe tend to be built around large chunks of bright primary colors, overlaid with intricate networks of texture and soft-focus human faces. The striking works radiate energy and exuberance, bringing to mind such disparate artistic practices as urban muralism and abstract expressionism.
Jackson's bold use of color has been a hard-won, lifelong process – she recalls grappling with color for as long as she can remember. 'Trying to understand how color responds to itself has been a lifelong fascination of mine,' she said. 'There's so much that translates about emotion and history through color. We who have grown up looking at paintings in our communities are all invited to consider what color means.'
The striking visual choices that are present in Jackson's art intersect with her deep research into the ongoing struggle over civil rights for Black people in America. Her pieces often bear titles referencing court cases and other historic developments for Black Americans, such as the 2016 work Dajerria All Alone (Bolling v. Sharpe (District of Columbia)) (McKinney Pool Party). Titled for a court case argued by Thurgood Marshall that helped desegregate public schools in the United States, the piece is covered in ephemera from Marshall's lengthy battle to integrate schools; it also recognizes the 2018 assault of 15-year-old Dajerria Becton by a police officer during a Texas pool party, offering images related to her life.
'I felt like my responsibility was to discuss public narratives,' Jackson said. 'I was trying to find ways to make a contribution to our history, since so much has already been done.'
As a part of her engagement with the historical record, Jackson frequently uses reclaimed materials, such as brown paper bags, bits and pieces from democratic elections, and even gauze – it's a practice that dates back to the years while Jackson was in art school and pursuing her bachelor's degree. 'While I was in this highly competitive art school environment, I was given this huge bolt of gauze that had been salvaged from an old Johnson & Johnson factory. I decided that I would make all my work using that.'
The use of these materials dovetailed with Jackson's choice to step away from using any color at all, as she processed her feelings around pigments. As Jackson recounted, when she first attended Cooper Union in 2005, she abandoned all use of color, instead first grappling with the material reality of objects as they were. 'I didn't feel like I had an instinctually responsive relationship that made me feel like I understood what I was doing with color,' she said. 'So for a number of years I didn't allow myself to use any color. I started to try to figure out how to work with materials as I found them and not impose anything through adding color.'
These inquiries eventually brought Jackson to consider the relationship between cultural memories and the everyday disposable items that will remain in the earth for hundreds of thousands of years. 'When I left Cooper Union and came up to Massachusetts, I focused on what I had learned about collective memory and waste management,' she said. 'What is the nature of collective memory that's been passed on for millennia? What relationship does that have with plastics and Styrofoams that are presented for public use as disposable, but that ultimately outlive us all?'
One of the pieces that distinguishes this iteration of Across the Universe from previous versions is the inclusion of the major work Minute by Minute. A reference to The Doobie Brothers' 1978 album of the same name, the mixed media piece includes family photographic prints, a hand-crafted walnut awning, and pieces of marble. It is in part a tribute to Jackson's late mother, Aver Marie Burroughs, who used to listen to the album with the artist. Jackson's mother gave the artist her compact disc of the album when Jackson moved from Los Angeles to the Bay Area to pursue artistic studies, and it's now one of the few concrete items that Jackson has in memory of her mother.
The show also features video of Jackson's drag king alter ego, Tommy Tonight, whom she has previously embodied in order to perform the Doobie Brothers' Minute by Minute in a tribute to her mother. 'I now understand that he emerged out of grief for my mother's illness and eventual passing,' she said. 'Our last iteration of the show allowed me to learn more about the history of drag performance as art historically born of grief – a celebration of grief. So that character has a whole video room unto himself.'
For Jackson, Across the Universe is a homecoming of sorts – although she spent the majority of her childhood in southern California, she was born in Houston and traces her family history through the migration story from Texas to the west coast. Having a mid-career full-circle moment is both the culmination of one story and the start of another one. 'I was conceived in 3rd Ward of Houston and born there, and I was later taken to southern California and raised there with my maternal family. It feels like a miracle that Contemporary Arts Museum Houston has agreed to host this show. It's literally been a lifelong dream.'
Tomashi Jackson: Across the Universe is on show at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston from 30 May to 29 March 2026