Artist’s Bio

Ava Jackson is a young artist who specializes in oil painting realism, and emotionally lead contemporary pieces. She graduated high school in 2023 with extensive practice in her work, receiving multiple Scholastic Art Awards in both her junior (received a Gold Key Award, 2022) and senior year (received a Gold Key Award and 2 Silver Key Awards, 2023). She attending Virginia Commonwealth University her freshman year of college where she participated in the rigorous AFO program, receiving several opportunities to learn and showcase her artwork. Following some major life changes, she transferred to Arizona State University, where she began to discover her artistic voice as she grappled with her identity, ideology, and mental health issues. She is now a senior at ASU Online, based in Virginia Beach, and has begun to share her work with the world in a professional capacity. She is currently focused on honing her artistic process, while also allowing space to explore beyond her preferred mediums.

Artist Statement

I am still a young artist, meaning my work is evolving as my understanding of the world around me is. I’ve always wanted to create ‘good’ art, and when I was young this was as simple as asking myself, does this look like the reference photo? As I learned more about the art world and how vast the category called ‘art’ is, I began to question what makes my art good, because suddenly being able to paint something realistic was not enough. While these doubts crept in, I was dealing with incredible emotional and financial strain and my identity become lost as I could not find a direction for my art. And then came the moment where I had to decide, what do I truly want for myself and for my art. So I began again, I gave myself every creative freedom to discover what I wanted my art to be. “Letting go” of every creative expectation I had set for myself allowed me to trust myself again creatively. For years my work has been centered around physical representation, however with my new found freedom, my art is not a picture of a story, but the story itself.