Jacob Mason-Macklin

Mason-Macklin’s current practice grows from a place that is unmoored. Drawing influence from the lavish backdrops of Midnight Special and the dancers in the Soul Train line, spirited scenes of entangled lovers and swingers Two-Step their way through otherworldly nightspots. Soul Procession is a search for soul. Mason-Macklin’s figures are on the beat and on the lam. Striped bodysuits hug the flesh as the dancers twist into a mass of shape and color. By the end of the night, paint turns to pattern as lurid interiors reach back into the past to recreate a setting both strange and familiar. Underneath is an urge to untangle. As we march onward through a space of increasing uncertainty, Soul Procession offers a neon exit sign.

Jacob Mason-Macklin (b. 1995) is a visual artist born in Columbus, OH currently living in New York City. Mason-Macklin has exhibited in New York City with Jeffrey Stark Gallery (2017) and The Swiss Institute (2019), as well as a solo exhibition with No Place Gallery in Columbus, OH (2020). His work is included in the permanent archives at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City and the Langston Hughes Library in Corona, New York (2019). Mason-Macklin is a 2019 Alumni of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and a 2016 fellow of the Yale-Norfolk Summer School of Art.