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• 1 2026-05-08T18:57:31+00:00 Jackson Stewart 4 plain 2026-05-08T19:16:52+00:00

  Sanctuary is a series of three large-scale oil paintings reflective of my life from three different periods. Each piece is rooted in a portrait photograph of myself, which has been warped, collaged, and folded into various other photos to recontextualize the contents of the original image into a new constructed reality. These reinterpretations reflect a broader emotional state that each painting holds for myself, while doubling as fantastical environments ((((())))

  The first piece, titled Pond Dwelling, harkens back to my early life. This 48 x 60 inch painting depicts my preschool age self drawing, surrounded by a school of goldfish. When I moved into my childhood home in preschool, there was a “koi” pond in the yard, full of goldfish. It became a place of utter fascination and imagination, and was an early source of inspiration for my younger self . Over the years the fish died (or were killed off by raccoons), and the pond fell into a state of dilapidation, existing in the house yard as a reminder of what it once was. This painting doubles as both a reflection on my earlier creative processes, through the usage of fingerpainting markmaking and (slightly) looser brushstrokes, and also a bit of a nostalgia trip, using the canvas as a space to revive a dead facet of my early childhood. 

  The second oil painting, titled Central Sky, is the largest painting of the three, at 60” x 84”. The landscape and cloud imagery are from various sections of Highway 5. It is a road I drive often, cutting through hundreds of miles of farmland in California’s Central Valley, connecting Chapman University to my home back in the Bay Area. The grandiosity of the setting is centered by a much smaller, more intimate image of my ten year old self sleeping facedown in my bed at home. The white bedsheets and painted blue walls of my childhood bedroom are similarly evocative of the cloudy setting they are surrounded by, while the reds and blue tones echo out to the surrounding clouds. There is a certain level of comfort that the sky provides, knowing that no matter where you are, you are still looking out towards and being greeted by the same space.

  The third and final painting, titled Wine Night, is a reflection of my young adult years, up to where I am today. The 48” x 60” piece depicts a hangout at my friend’s dorm my sophomore year, during an impromptu photoshoot. The original image has been flipped, swooshed, and squashed into each other to create a chaotic swirling around the canvas, but is still held together with some harmony in the warm oranges, browns, and olive tones that define the painting visually. It’s a rendition of an otherwise unremarkable moment from a fun, chaotic night, but had been an occasion that had rooted itself into the back of my mind. My friends are usually my biggest muses in my art, and many of the photos I take of them or stage with them become the basis for much of my work. 

   

  The scale, geometry, and color palette all serve their own purpose within each work. The rectangle motif serves as a visual throughline in all three paintings, working as a framing device in which much of the abstracting and image layering occurs. The back and forth communication between the repeating frames and the original image underneath create a visual tension, meant to push each scene beyond. The large scale of each piece creates an immersive viewing environment within the paintings, allowing for both close, detail-oriented investigation, and farther yet just as immersive viewing. All of the paintings have their own exclusive color palettes with slight cross-pollination in tonality, tethering the works to each other while still giving enough visual space to stand alone.