From Cornfields to Cliffs and In Between: Daily Palette Artists Reimagine Iowa's Landscape

Since its launch in 2004, the Daily Palette at the University of Iowa has featured the work of over 3000 Iowa-connected artists, publishing their work online and encouraging a greater appreciation of the arts statewide.

In honor of its twelfth year, the Daily Palette is organizing a gallery exhibition at the Old Capitol Museum on the University's campus to celebrate two of Iowa's most important yet often under-appreciated features: its landscape and its artistic talent. From Cornfields to Cliffs and In Between: Daily Palette Artists Reimagine Iowa's Landscape is a juried exhibition that spotlights seven artists working in a variety of media who interpret Iowa's landscape and invite us to think about the state in new ways.

From Cornfields to Cliffs and In Between: Daily Palette Artists Reimagine Iowa's Landscape is on view at the Old Capitol Museum from Tuesday, April 26, 2016 to Sunday, June 12, 2016. This exhibition is made possible through the support of the following departments and organizations at the University of Iowa: the Old Capitol Museum, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, the Graduate College, and the School of Art & Art History.

THOMAS C. JACKSON
American Slice 31, digital c print, 29.2" x 20", 2013

Thomas Jackson grew up in Rock Island, Illinois and earned his MFA from the University of Notre Dame.  He now lives and works as a full-time artist in Cedar Rapids.  He has been exhibiting his work in solo, group, and juried shows throughout the country for more than forty years.  Tom's work is included in dozens of corporate, museum, and college collections throughout Iowa and Illinois, including the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, and Mount Mercy University.  His work was first published on the Daily Palette in 2005.

American Slice 31 combines three different images connected through the theme of abandonment and destruction: a portion of a parking ramp in downtown Cedar Rapids, a concrete slab at the site of a small building that was razed outside of Cedar Rapids, and a chair on the side of the road between Cedar Rapids and Mount Vernon.

I strive to make relevant, memorable American images that make people think.  I focus on finding the extraordinary in ordinary American life.  I am interested in reflecting the mood and feeling of our era. 

These compositions combine two or more images into a single artwork.  I combine images because I want enough information to engage the viewer in looking for connections between images.  I invite the viewer to search their own past, remember emotional experiences, and think about common images in a different way.  I strive for ambiguity to increase the number of viewer interpretations.

When one thinks about what appeals to Americans today in movies, politics, celebrities, food, etc., people seem to want to be attracted to and repelled by images at the same time.  My sometimes voyeuristic, broken-narrative compositions reflect America's channel-changing attention span and state of mind.  -- Thomas Jackson

Thomas C. Jackson's website