Philip Jackson, David Jewell, Mary Sexton & Jerry Siegel: Art as Understatement

A narrow gallery doesn’t seem the ideal space to feature work by four artists, but Southside’s director, Wil Cook, found a way to make it work. This month they are the work of Philip Jackson, David Jewell, Mary Sexton and Jerry Siegel in a show that capitalizes on the interplay of work on the wall and on pedestals.

Less may be more, but it’s not always better. Sculptures by Oxonian, Mary Sexton, direct us towards the back of the gallery where photography by Jerry Siegel creates a window onto rural Alabama landscapes. Before glimpsing through the glass though, Sexton’s sculptures give pause, then rise, to laughter.

Sexton has attached porcelain faces to found wood branches that become the limbs of a series of characters. Among the repurposed wood is a dancer, a pair of old bathers, a wizened man, and a fawn. The clay, a similar shade of the wood in most cases, grows like a bud from the branches. The Sage and Female Dancer, in particular, use the qualities of the different matter to their advantage.

Female Dancer takes center stage in the gallery’s window. She’s a lithe woman who wears her hair in a chignon with a strand of beads around her neck. Her upward gaze is defiant, yet elegant, and she arches her back and arms as though preparing to leap from the pedestal.

The Sage is as affecting. Lines of gnarled wood are repeated in the plump, wrinkled flesh of a man. Two vertical branches rise up to cradle his head while a third, thicker trunk suggests the reclining pose of a body. Were C.S. Lewis still alive, he might be convinced that Sexton brought to life the half-nymphs of Narnia. They’re not, of course, but it’s fun to wonder if her sculptures might begin to speak.

Sandwiching Sexton’s sculptures are paintings by Philip Jackson and David Jewell. On the right, David Jewell offers glimpses into the interiors of a few noted Oxford locations, among them: Rowan Oak and the Lyceum. For those who have been to either location, the work comes across as familiar, flattering representations of the respective places. But it is those depicting an artist’s space, as in Jackson and His Studio, that garnered my attention.

Composed on wood panels, Jewell allows the golden matrix to come through where he has left parts of the painting, especially the edges, unfinished. The result is a loose style that forces our eyes to move around the composition, rather than settle on one point of interest.

Whereas in this show Jewell’s subjects mostly rest with interiors, Philip Jackson, a University of Mississippi painting and drawing professor, focuses on landscapes in rural Mississippi and Alabama. In Mississippi Landscape #1 and #2, leaves flutter and streams gurgle beside dense, thickets of grass.

Other paintings depict land north of the Mason-Dixon in Perrysburg, Columbus, and Lucky Haskins, Ohio, the latter, which portrays a quaint family farm. Though landscapes, at their best get beyond mere representation, Jackson does more. He shows us that the land, like the people who live on it, can move us.

Jerry Siegel also aptly tackles landscapes; however, he focuses his lens southeast of Oxford in rural Alabama. The entire rear space of the gallery features Siegel’s color photographs, which are wide landscapes that are narrow in height to accentuate their horizons.

In countries like Selma, Alabama, Siegel’s eye for composition and concept would make Rauschenberg proud. In the photograph Adler’s, a row of tires against a blazing orange wall becomes sculpture. There is a similar effect with metal mailboxes lined up like a floating checkerboard alongside a county road in a photograph taken in Perry County, Alabama.

It’s not just the man-made that plays a role in the subject of Siegel’s photography either. The title piece of his work captures a flock of birds that appear a gray cloud in the sky. To their left, a tree bends towards them as though kneeling in adoration. That underlining commentary adds depth to what would otherwise be just another portrait of country life. Siegel presents a study of the understatement.

For more about these artists call 662-234-9090.

Philip Jackson


David Jewell


Mary Sexton





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