On the artist Suzanne Jackson and What is Love?
By Ava Palermo
Suzanne Jackson in her studio is Savannah, 2023; @ Peter Edwards, courtesy Peter Frank Edwards/Redux; photo: Peter Frank Edwards.
Amazingly enough, artist Suzanne Jackson was 75 when she had her first solo show in New York at the Ortuzar Gallery in 2019. It proved to be a magnificent moment for the artist in her career. Jackson was born in St. Louis, Missouri and began her lifelong pursuit of artistic experimental Oeuvre in the 1960s, channeling her essence into ethereal watercolor style figurative paintings that reflected the natural world around her. in her most recent works, she has transmuted her touch from the walls to the air in a throng of mesmerizing constellations that incorporate unique materials, such as, nets, bamboo, and lace. These suspended sculptures of beauty are described by the term Jackson has coined, “environmental abstractions.” These sculptures debuted at the 2024 Whitney biennial and garnered further recognition in Suzanne Jackson’s Somethings in the World” (2023-23), a collaborative exhibition by Fondazione Furla and Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Milan.
In an exciting fashion, Suzanne Jackson’s first major museum retrospective has just opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The exhibition holds the title “Suzanne Jackson: What is Love,” the show has been co-organized with the Walker art center in Minneapolis, which it will be traveling to in the spring of 2026 before reaching its final habitation ay The Museum of Fine Arts Boston. The exhibition is a treasure trove of more than 80 works, the exhibition itself stands in chronological order. It follows Jackson's singular life and career, spanning across spatial and temporal scales; displaying the diversified art forms she has dabbled in, from dance and theater to sculpture and painting, respectively.
Suzanne Jackson, Hers and His, 2018; San Franicsco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase, by exchange, through a gift of Peggy Guggenheim: @ Suzanne Jackson; photo: Timothy Doyon.
In a conversation with Vogue, no more a grand introduction could be thought of. Jackson discusses her joy around her work and her new exhibition, as well as the long road she has taken to reach these fulfilling self achievements. “The past five years Ortuzar gallery has taken me all over the world and places I never expected to be. When I was in art school at San Francisco state college (now university), we were taught that one wouldn’t receive all this wonderful attention until you became my age, and the work is mature enough,” Jackson spoke quite humbly to a Vogue journalist, “I don't believe that I'm the age I am right now.” (Vogue 2025) This show, five years of passion in the making for Jackson, is to her what she describes as a “gift”, and goes on to capture the image of San Francisco as a city of her own, a place she came to as a young child and later took her first art classes in university. It is a city that allowed her family to excel during the Great Migration. It was in a way the beginning of a life not just for Jackson herself, but for the magnificent art she would one day conceptualize and create, a meaning making that will endure long after she. In her young adult life, after receiving an MFA in theater design from Yale University in 1990, Jackson found herself returning to her home in San Francisco, where she then worked for years, very successfully might I add, as a scenic costume designer. Music and movement remain key aspects of her heart stemming from her roots in the creative landscape of the show. However, Jackson yearned for control over her own masterpiece, more than observation of a work not completely hers.
Suzanne Jackson, deepest ocean, what we do not know, we might see? 2021. Tanto family collection. @Suzanne Jackson, courtesy of Ortuzar, New York. Photo: Patrick Jameson
For six decades Suzanne Jackson has worked to create lyrical and awe-inspiring pieces, all of which she attributes inspiration to worldly influences; her own deep connection with the natural world and strong belief in the connection that exists between all living things. Her pieces stand strong, as does she, as symbols of the undying and ever tethered connection to something grander than us all. We can observe through her work, the drive and creative freedom instilled in her from a bohemian spirit acquired through the San Francisco ethos of the 1950s and 1960s in which she grew up. Jacksons latest installation, What is Love, currently resides, rightfully so, within the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This installation stands as a full and encapsulating retrospection devoted to the journey that has been her career. The exhibit is more than just that; it is a celebration of Jackson, and her innovative and groundbreaking artistic techniques developed through color, light, and structure. The exhibition aims at showcasing the many multifaceted elements of Jackson and her artistic career; it is one that will stand the test of time.
Bibliography
Bradley, Claire. “Suzanne Jackson: Love, Peace, and Beauty.” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, September 2025. https://www.sfmoma.org/read/suzanne-jackson/. SFMOMA+1
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. “Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love.” SFMOMA Exhibition Page, September 27, 2025–March 1, 2026. https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/suzanne-jackson-what-is-love/. SFMOMA+1
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. “Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love Opens September 27 at SFMOMA.” SFMOMA Press Release, March 25, 2025 (updated August 18, 2025). https://www.sfmoma.org/press-release/sfmoma-debuts-suzanne-jackson-what-is-love/. SFMOMA
“Suzanne Jackson – SFMOMA Preview.” Artforum Events. Accessed [date you accessed it]. https://www.artforum.com/events/suzanne-jackson-sfmoma-preview-1234733818/.
Bradley and Claire. “At 81, Artist Suzanne Jackson Finally Gets the Major Museum Retrospective She Deserves.” Vogue, September 2025. Accessed October 30, 2025. https://www.vogue.com/article/suzanne-jackson-what-is-love-sfmoma.