A Constellation of Blackness: Rendering Invisibility, Hypervisibility, Devaluation, and Triumph

Personal Histories: Work by 2021 AYP AIR Artists
Verge Center for the Arts, Sacramento, CA
Curated by Liv Moe, Founding Director and Amy Greer, Deputy Director.

Hand-printed silkscreen broadsides on black Legion Stonehenge paper, black ink, white ink, and extra fine black glitter

The word constellation is defined as a “group or configuration of ideas, feelings, characteristics, objects, etc., that are related in some way.” These silkscreen prints represent related ideas and examples of Jackson’s various accounts of invisibility, hypervisibility, devaluation, and triumph experienced as a Black woman in America. Building upon the concept of her initial and ongoing project—Language of Invisibility—this artwork presents black text on black paper along with strategically placed words in white to telegraph compelling, layered, and subliminal messages. The text is set in “Atkinson Hyperlegible,” a font created by the Braille Institute specifically to increase readability. Jackson enjoys the paradox of rendering nearly illegible text that illuminates previously unrecognized constructs via a font designed to improve legibility and comprehension.

This body of work was produced during Jackson’s tenure at the 2021 Ali Youssefi Project/WAL Artist in Residence, at Verge Center for the Arts. It is the first set in a continuing series of silkscreened prints encompassing multiple panels.