Talk
Tomashi Jackson in conversation with Ashley James

Please note: This event is free, but seating is limited. RSVP tickets will not be held after 6:30pm on the day of the event. Sold Out.
In conjunction with Judith Bernstein: Cabinet of Horrors, The Drawing Center is hosting three evenings of conversations by artist-curator pairings on December 12, 2017; January 16th and January 17th, 2018. The program is realized thanks to the generous support of Valeria Napoleone XX and is produced by Rosario Güiraldes, Assistant Curator.
Ashley James, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, joins Tomashi Jackson to discuss abstraction and color theory as vehicles for explorations of social histories—past and present, contemporary black art practices, and art school efficacy. Tomashi Jackson’s multi-disciplinary practice explores color as a vehicle for complex historic and contemporary narratives embedded in abstraction.
Tomashi Jackson is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work functions within the context of painting. She lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New York City. She holds a MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale School of Art, a degree of Science Master of Art, Culture, and Technology from the M.I.T. School of Architecture and Planning, and a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art. Jackson's work is currently on view at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and Art Center South Florida. Her first museum exhibition titled Interstate Love Song will be on view at Kennesaw State University from January 27 through May 6, 2018. Jackson currently teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Jackson is represented by Tilton Gallery in New York City.
Ashley James is Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum. She previously worked in the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Museum of Modern Art. James is a PhD candidate in the Departments of African American Studies, English Literature, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. She holds an MA and MPhil in English Literature and an MA and MPhil in African American Studies from Yale. At Yale, she co-curated the 2014 University Art Gallery exhibition Odd Volumes: Book Art from the Allan Chasanoff Collection. She writes broadly on modern and contemporary literary and visual arts practices, and her dissertation reconsiders the relationship between politics, art, and Blackness in the late 1960s and early 1970s.