“In Roxanne Jackson’s wicked ceramics, the boundaries between human and animal, woman and monster, and creation and destruction blur beneath a sea of glitter and gloriously mutated forms. Clay, a medium often associated with timeless beauty and a sense of fragility, here becomes something ferocious and chimerical. Jackson creates sculptures that subvert dominant ideas of femininity. Working fluidly in 3D space means that Jackson’s sculptures are a dense, layered species from the beginning. This comes to a head particularly in her Alienware series, wherein Jackson sculpts jacked-up animal heads only to split them in two. Another beastly creation emerges from the central cavity, which Jackson digs into and sculpts again into something else in a mystical process of constant metamorphosis. Drawing on 1980s Predator aesthetics, these bats, snakes fanged felines and intestines are decked out in glittering crystals and shells. The beautiful melts seamlessly into the macabre, always on the edge of another transformation.” Catalog Excerpt for the exhibition “Friends and Friends of Friends,” at the Schlossmuseum in Linz, Austria (September 30, 2020 - January 6, 2021). My work blazes a new path to reinvent craft and disrupt historic ceramic sculpture. By approaching ceramics from many different directions, using a variety of materials and techniques, I exploit this medium, question conventional notions of beauty and find beauty in the unexpected. I aim to invent a new mythology by creating uncanny, distorted and psychedelic forms. These metamorphic “mystery objects,” escape a single unified narrative. They are created through an exploration of form, by sculpting mashup compositions, extracting traits from both highbrow and lowbrow culture and maneuvering heat and fluxed glaze. These shapeshifting sculptures evolve and unfurl, revealing gems once hidden. There are collisions of nature and fantasy, the absurd, the playful, the ironic and the grotesque. These sculptures are created by a series of ceramic practices that mimic geology, as clay morphs from a malleable material into a hard one. The firing process, adding an element of heat, further parallels metamorphic rock formation. Glaze is applied, melting and crystallizing onto the surface, like igneous rock. Deviant forms are reinforced by vibrant, lustrous glazes — achieved through layering surfaces and multiple kiln firings. This sublime relationship between the natural world and ceramics has informed the imagery of my sculptures. Conglomerate-like animal heads are cut in half to reference a geode. They transform into something else — like a head that petrifies and crystallizes over time, morphing into a mineral, a fossil or a pearl. The interiors of these flayed heads are an amalgamation of decorative elements, geometric shapes and alien-like textures; they seem otherworldly. In my series Monster Paws, oversized paws and furry hands are cutesy and chubby, or creepy and gnarly. Witchy claws of feminine beasts are adorned and manicured with excess, as nails are styled with French tips, rhinestones, gold luster or glitter. Giving off vibes of the occult, casino decor or camp, these ostentatious hands hold various items from a crystal shrine to magic mushrooms, or from a spiny shell to a slimy slug. The devil is in the details of a piece of Nigiri sushi, a slice of partially eaten birthday cake (cherry with chocolate frosting), or a slice of mushroom pizza — transmogrifying into a melting-zombie-pizza face. Furthermore, some witchy hands are candle holders, to further subvert the traditions of the ceramic medium. “Jackson’s ceramic sculptures of splayed animal heads, swollen hands, and humanoid creatures are presented on mirrored surfaces that reflect and fold in on themselves. Animal spirits, vampiric features, and gore are met with absurd compositions and camp gestures. Lurid nightmares come to life through fire and melted glaze. Visions so grotesque and absurd, they tip the balance from horror into humor. ” Excerpt from the press release written by Arielle Bier for “Karma” a two person exhibition at Duve Berlin, Berlin, Germany (September 12 - October 25, 2019).