Alison Jackson (artist): Difference between revisions

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Alison Jackson (born 1960) is a photographer who got an MA Fine Art Photography from The Royal College of Art, London and a BA (Hons) Fine Art Sculpture from the Chelsea College of Art. She hit the headlines in 2000 with her lookalike photographs of celebrities in compromising positions.

Jackson became notorious in Britain during 1999 for producing black-and-white photographs that apparently showed Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed with a mixed-race love child. Since the couple died without producing offspring the photographs were clearly impossible. They appeared convincing because Jackson had employed look-alike models to pose as Di and Dodi. The photos, part of a series entitled Mental Images, were technically assured, beautifully composed and lit in a manner reminiscent of Old Master paintings of the Holy Family. Jackson was attracted to the subject of Diana because she was a national icon at the time of her death and by the fact that millions mourned her even though the majority only knew her through mass media images. It was also clear to Jackson that people fantasised about Diana’s love life.

Jackson was also the artist behind BBC Two's series Double Take, for which she won a BAFTA [1]

Personal life

Her father was a wealthy eccentric whose idyll as the owner of his family's late-Georgian estate near Portsmouth was shattered in 1972 when he received a government purchase order to run the new M23 through his parkland. "It devastated him," says Jackson, who was away at boarding school at the time. "He was so upset that he arranged to have the house burned down." The Jackson family - Alison has an older brother - moved to an equally impressive Gloucestershire mansion, originally an 11th-century Gilbertine monastery, with its own chapel and network of secret tunnels.

Her childhood was spent largely at Croft House, a "miserable" Sussex boarding school "for complete dunces, where it was all about needlework and dressage". Sarah Ferguson was a pupil. Her eccecentric father died when she was a teenager.

Jackson is single and childless. She has a "relatively long-term" boyfriend called Anthony, a film producer.

TV work

2005 CH4 The Secret Election
2005 CH4 Royal Wedding special
2004/5 SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. NBC
2003 DOUBLETAKE XMAS SPECIAL
2003 DOUBLETAKE. BBC2. Created, Directed, Wrote and Produced 6 part series based on Mental Images
2002 DOUBLETAKE. BBC2. Created, Directed, Wrote special. BAFTA
2001-2003 SCHWEPPES ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN UK. Created concept, devised ideas and photographed

Solo art exhibitions

Julie Saul New York
2004 Photo London.
2003 Schweden Gallery Munich
2003 The Richard Salmon Gallery, London 'Mental Images on War'
2002 The Musee de la Photographie a Charleroi, Brussels.
2001 Jerwood Space, London 'Mental Images'
2000 The Richard Salmon Gallery, London
1999 The Richard Salmon Gallery, London

Group exhibitions

2004 Hayward Gallery. London About Face. Photography and the Death of the Portrait
2004 PhotoLondon
2003 Room Bristol
2003 Musee de l'eysee, Lusanne. Touring Group Show
2003 ICP International Center of Photography, New York
2002 Paris Photo, Louvre. Gallerie Moussion and Gallery 51 Antwerp
2000 Art 2000 London
2000 Edinburgh Festival
2000 The Blue Gallery
1999 The Royal Festival Hall, London. Articultural Show
1999 The Blue Gallery. Temple of Diana Show
1998 Shoreditch Biennale, London

Books

Private (Penguin Books Ltd, October 28, 2004) - ISBN 0141019182

External links

Home page
Videoclip from the BBC comedy Double Take
Interview with Jackson

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 ==Personal life==
+Her father was a wealthy eccentric whose idyll as the owner of his family's late-Georgian estate near [[Portsmouth]] was shattered in [[1972]] when he received a government purchase order to run the new [[M23]] through his parkland. "It devastated him," says Jackson, who was away at boarding school at the time. "He was so upset that he arranged to have the house burned down." The Jackson family - Alison has an older brother - moved to an equally impressive Gloucestershire mansion, originally an 11th-century Gilbertine monastery, with its own chapel and network of secret tunnels.
-Her eccecentric father died when she was young, her mother more recently, and Jackson is single and childless. She has a "relatively long-term" boyfriend called Anthony, a film producer, on whom she refuses to be drawn.
+Her childhood was spent largely at Croft House, a "miserable" [[Sussex]] boarding school "for complete dunces, where it was all about needlework and dressage". [[Sarah Ferguson]] was a pupil. Her eccecentric father died when she was a teenager.
+Jackson is single and childless. She has a "relatively long-term" boyfriend called Anthony, a film producer.
 ==TV work==