Hold the Door: Radical Contemporary Women Printers

Veronica Jackson

About the Artist

Artist Statement

Veronica Jackson’s autobiographical work stems from the position of a Black woman marking space, while responding to the travails of her ancestors. Her multi-decade interpretive exhibit design and architecture careers form the foundation of her multidisciplinary visual art practice. Jackson tells stories using familiar objects and text with a special focus on the portrayal, perception, and legacy of Black women in popular media. Her work addresses many internal queries, specifically: What does it mean to be invisible? How does the designation of invisibility affect her identity and sense of self?  

Jackson’s art practice encompasses the critical examination of visual culture. As an artist she records, interprets, and makes aware the complexities in which humans exist and affect their social surroundings. Her work lies at the intersection of visual art, architecture, and interpretive design, and combines past professional disciplines, present lived experiences, and an accumulation of contemporary and historic research.

Jackson’s initial and ongoing project—The Burden of Invisibility—presents her evolution from designer to conceptual artist. Her work investigates Black women’s visibility, value, and devaluation in visual culture, while responding to a gendered and racialized existence in America.

 

Bio:

Veronica Jackson (b. Washington, DC) critically examines the lives of Black women who mark space. Her multi-decade interpretive exhibit design and architecture career form the foundation of her multidisciplinary and oftentimes autobiographical visual art practice. Her work tells stories utilizing familiar objects and text. 

A sample of Jackson’s residencies include SFAI, Santa Fe, NM; Ali Youssefi Project WAL/Verge Center for the Arts, Sacramento, CA; VCCA, Amherst, VA; WSW, Rosendale, NY; and Visual Arts Center of Richmond (VisArts), Richmond, VA. 

 

photo of artist, Jennifer Graves in front of her work

Artist:

Veronica Jackson

Exhibition

Hold the Door: Radical Contemporary Women Printers

She has exhibited in group and solo shows including NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, NYC; Verge Center for the Arts, Sacramento, CA; JSAAHC, PVCC, and UVA all in Charlottesville, VA; Riverviews Artspace, Lynchburg, VA; and recent solo shows at VisArts and the Daura Museum of Art, University of Lynchburg. Her work resides in collections of private individuals, as well as the Virginia Humanities, Charlottesville and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. 

Jackson holds an MA in Visual & Critical Studies from CCA, San Francisco and a BS in Architecture from UVA, Charlottesville. She currently lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Central Virginia.

This collagraph monoprint of an American army uniform, adorned with patches of both Korean and U.S. flags, serves as a poignant reflection on identity and the visible traces of American influence on South Korea’s history. It also speaks to my own experience growing up as a first-generation, gay Korean immigrant.

Mature Black Woman Seeks… (FEARLESSLY)
Letterpress broadside on paper
15” x 11”
2020

This print reveals a layered composition of undergarments—an intimate counterpoint to the visible uniform. Through graphite transfers and pressure printing, the work exposes the concealed labor and vulnerability beneath the surface of military presentation. Referencing the hidden layers of identity, gender, and desire, it reflects the internal contradictions of growing up queer within hypermasculine, militarized environments.

Mature Black Woman Seeks… (APOLOGIZE)
Letterpress broadside on paper
15” x 11”
2020

This print features a miniature doll-sized military uniform suspended in a dreamlike void. Set against a backdrop of ink-stained balloon explosions, it evokes a surreal battlefield where innocence, violence, and nostalgia intermingle. The disembodied figure hovers—caught between weightlessness and detonation, suggesting the emotional dissociation of growing up under the shadow of war.

Mature Black Woman Seeks… (RESTRICTIVE)
Letterpress broadside on paper
15” x 11”
2020

THAT’S POPS’S MONEY (detail)
Letterpress timecards on paper
11” x 4” each (813 total), placed in a grid mounted to 96″ x 48″ x .75” gator board (set of 12)
2018-2019

THAT’S POPS’S MONEY (installation view)
Letterpress timecards on paper
11” x 4” each (813 total), placed in a grid mounted to 96″ x 48″ x .75” gator board (set of 12)
2018-2019

This print captures the invisible yet mounting pressures of war through the use of folded latex balloons as a matrix. As the forms explode under compression, ink is pushed outward—leaving behind magnified traces that resemble impact craters, shrapnel, or bursts. The resulting image becomes a symbolic battlefield, where material rupture echoes psychological fracture. The folds, the pressure, and the stains collectively visualize the unseen force of trauma and its imprint on both body and memory.

BLACKTIVISTS (Emma Smith Hackley and Elizabeth Carter Brooks)
Screenprint on paper
30” x 22” each (set of 12)
2022

BLACKTIVISTS (installation view)
Screenprint on paper
30” x 22” each (set of 12)
2022

BLACKTIVISTS (Fannie Barrier Williams)
Screenprint on plywood
20” x 17” x .75” each (set of 12)
2024

BLACKTIVISTS (installation view)
Screenprint on plywood
20” x 17” x .75” each (set of 12)
2024

A Constellation of Blackness (TRIUMPH)
Screenprinted broadsides on glass
30” x 20” each (set of 4)
2024

A Constellation of Blackness: Rendering Invisibility, Hypervisibility, Devaluation, and Triumph (detail)
Screenprinted broadsides on paper
30” x 22” each (set of 12)
2022

A Constellation of Blackness: Rendering Invisibility, Hypervisibility, Devaluation, and Triumph (installation view)
Screenprinted Broadsides on Paper and Glass
22” x 30” each (set of 12) and 30” x 20” each (set of 4)
2022-2024