Bursary Winner 2008

Regarded as one of Denmark’s most talented young ceramists, Mikael Jackson has a BA from Denmark’s Design School Kolding, studied at the Kunstfack in Stockholm and is a graduate of London’s Royal College of Art. Widely exhibited in Denmark and the UK, he is selected for this year’s Vallauris Biennale. This is his second exhibition at Puls.

“My work is the result of an abstract study of the dynamics at work within a tightly controlled organic form. The objects reside between biomorphic fantasy and formal organic exploration. From a distance you get the impression that each object’s complexity is casually organized. Yet as you approach more closely, you recognize in the meticulous system that each object depends upon the others. We experience an ongoing organic evolution through careful interaction and mutual influence.”

Arguably the greatest thinker in human history, it is recorded that during Isaac Newton’s life, he never laughed. Except once. And that was when asked what use in life was reading Euclid, the great Greek geometrician: “upon which Sir Isaac was very merry”. Then there is the story, perhaps apocryphal, that Albert Einstein, upon being given a copy of Euclid’s Elements at the age of ten and reading it through, wept with joy at its elegance and beauty.

It is not difficult then to understand Mikael Jackson’s deep and abiding fascination with the exploration of the infinite abstractions of geometry in his ceramic sculptures. He has said that he always sculpts his pieces with geometry as his starting point. This has, in fact, been the single most persistent aspect of his work since the beginning of his career.

While Jackson often employs the repetition of a simple three-dimensional element combined in various ways, a work invariably concludes in a unique conceptual statement. He is able to create a very different expression though a subtle but elegant alteration in the scale and the number of elements in play.

While some may recognise and view with awe Jackson’s research into abstract geometries of space, few will fail to be impressed with his ability to contrast fragility with strength, the visually tight opposed to loose expression, and the orderly with chaos.