He Said, Overripe
He Said, Overripe extends the same aesthetic process that Jackson first explored in his painting of a year earlier, Monkeys (2018). In this instance the reference material is more specific, taking the story of the fox and the grapes from Aesop’s fables (a narrative of unfulfilled gratification) as a source of inspiration for Jackson’s artistic and philosophical explorations. Stylistically Jackson’s paintings reveal the influence of Caymanian artist Bendel Hydes — the forefather of contemporary art in the Cayman Islands — as well as American mid-century Abstract Expressionism.
About the Artist
John Reno Jackson
b. 1995
John Reno Jackson is a Caymanian-American painter. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art (UCL) and received his MA in painting from the Royal College of Art, London (2025), where he was the recipient of the Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship. His work explores the possibilities of painterly expression through varying abstract investigations of his chosen medium. He has exhibited at Tern Gallery in the Bahamas and held a solo exhibition, A Heron Amidst the Storm, at the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands in 2022. His work is in the permanent collection of NGCI, where it has also featured in various exhibitions such as Island of Women: Life at Home During Our Maritime Years (2020), Reimagined Futures – 2nd Cayman Islands Biennial (2021) and The People’s Collection – A 25-Year Cultural Legacy (2022).
