Betsy Jacks

Artist Statement

I make paintings that reference images and characters from past decades and centuries that have taken root in our own time — including 19th-century Romanticism, ancient myths and folktales, and 20th-century popular culture — in order to re-open those stories and examine their power. In depicting familiar images in new ways, I attempt to dismantle the archetypes and instructions I was given as a girl in the 1970s, a teen in the 80s, and a young woman in the 90s, as well as the ill-fitting expectations of a woman in her 50s, and to become more aware of my unconscious adherence to them.

My recent work employs the trunks of trees as stand-ins for the human body in order to thwart my inner censor and critic, as there is no societal judgement about the appearance of a tree: its nakedness, its shape, its age, or its injuries. As a former dancer, I am especially drawn to gesture and body language, which are readily ascribed to trees because of their human-like scale and shape. My hope is to empower myself and others to become more aware of invisible walls and to realize we are free to break through them.

I began experimenting with apple tree shapes and textures in 2022 and noticed that their thick cracked bark and severed branches have the ability to evoke a fraught mixture of self-reflection, aesthetic judgment, ageism, and hope. Some of the resulting paintings question our society's disregard for old age and disgust at aging skin. Others probe the rules that govern women's bodies and the shame that is heaped on us. Still others combine both of these inquiries, depicting shapes that are cracked but strong, ancient but still blooming, naked and accepted as they are. Too often, women who earn creases and spots on their skin are pitied, belittled or mocked. In contrast, the rough bark of these trees might at first glance appear lifeless, but the wide trunks are muscular and capable of a tremendous profusion of life, beauty and fruit. I believe this is a conversation that is urgently needed in a society that can make a movie like "The Substance"; in which a woman ends up consuming herself in an attempt to remain attractive to men, as if that were the only purpose of our lives. With this body of work, I hope to provoke a new consideration and valuation of women.