ASA JACKSON
Asa Jackson is an American artist and arts leader based in North Carolina. As a multidisciplinary artist, Jackson’s work explores the cross section of textile from various countries, peoples, time periods, and personal histories. His works are often anthropological studies, representing the lives of myriad people, their collective and individual stories. By cutting and sewing fabrics together, Jackson metaphorically mixes cultures, time periods, people and places into unified works of art.
Jackson studied sociology at Boston University. He then moved to New York in 2010, where he was featured in several exhibitions, including a solo exhibition at the Samuel Owen Gallery in Greenwich, CT. Jackson then opened 670 Gallery in Virginia, leading the gallery as its director from 2014-2017. He has since been featured in numerous exhibitions, including more recently a solo at Les Yeux Du Monde in Charlottesville, VA, Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery in Luxembourg, EXPO Chicago , Art Brussels , and the Harvey B. Gantt Center in Charlotte, NC. His work is a part of various prominent collections including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Capital One Corporate Collection, The Mint Museum, the University of Virginia, and The Rockwell Museum. Jackson is the co-founder of the CAN Foundation, a not-for-profit arts organization in Newport News, VA, with a focus on building sustainable careers for the creative class. He served on the board of the Virginia Commission for the Arts from 2018-2023 where he acted as chairman for FY 2022. In January 2025, he became President and CEO of the McColl Center in Charlotte, NC.
Statement
The foundation of my work is based in lived-with and discarded items. Garments, bags,
household fabrics, pillows, curtains, blankets, newspapers, hair (ect) become the material form.
There’s a curiosity in the obscured stories these items hold and the places they’ve been; a
collection of energy that’s living. A literal juxtaposition of culture forms the basis of the work. In
a way, reusing these fabrics keeps these moments and memories alive, but puts them in
different context and rhythm. The content of the work comes from another place. My inner
world displayed outward, my fascination with the origin of things, man’s divinity and regality,
time, and evolution. A physical representation of the layers and textures of life, or any given
subject.
Statement About The King’s Cord Series
My interest in corduroy as a medium originated with the fabric’s combination of durability and
softness. As I delved deeper into the material, I began exploring its history and mythologies,
contemplating how these narratives mirrored my own artistic themes and personal cosmology.
In studying the etymology of the word corduroy, loosely translated in French as the cord or rope
of the king, and its history as a preferred fabric by certain monarchs, the King’s Cord became an
apocryphal tale of kingship and divinity.
The series of works are depictions of maps, aerial views, and landscapes portraying both the
internal and external life of a king. The golden thread, or the King’s Cord, defines the boundaries
of the king's domain within the landscape of corduroy, a display of the ruler's authority.
Symbolically, the maps represent the responsibility of man as the sovereign of his own
world—an internal imaginative landscape that materializes in the physical realm. They function
as a visual representation of one's interior kingdom, extending to an exterior map, a
demonstration of the inherent relationship between the realms of the imagined and the
concrete.