Alex Jackson’s (b. 1993, Milwaukee, WI) practice involves the development of a continually expanding universe. One where recurring characters traverse an entangled ecology of color, shadow, form, flatness, and geography, in an effort to find freedom in the building of a new language. Jackson plays with the foundations of perception and meaning encouraging the viewer to question our own observations. Creating a strange and surreal world, the artist brings to focus ideas of placelessness and transition, questioning the metaphorical boundaries of economics, stereotypes, and categorization. Jackson challenges us to question what is actually present versus what we are shown.

'Earthgrazer', is a recent 12-print portfolio suite; Jackson's first project-based engagement with etching and engraving. Each print isolates fragments from Jackson’s ongoing narrative project The Universe of E. The Universe of E is an expansive universe taking place inside the body of a man who turned into a black hole. 'Earthgrazer', draws a parallel to a rare classification of meteor, signifying a fleeting passage through Earth's atmosphere before swiftly returning to the vastness of space. Mirroring this celestial phenomenon, 'Earthgrazer' portrays a constellation of characters suspended in a delicate balance between arrival and departure, emergence and disappearance, legibility, and dissolution. The iterative nature of the intaglio print process mirrors this same state of flux, as the image exists simultaneously as a drawing, an etching, an object, and ultimately as an impression.