Rachel Jackson: FIVE YEARS IN HORSE TIME

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

FIVE YEARS IN HORSE TIME

My work employs a recurring cast of characters to explore existential themes in a cartoonishly surreal way. The most prominent character navigating these scenes is a sentient pantomime horse costume. With a nod to the repetitive elasticity of animation, as well as the awkward practical effects of campy horror movies, these characters are often stretched, compacted, cloned, and even transformed into recognizable objects and symbols. There are eerily humorous undertones in the work, and reality is hauntingly subjective. In the world I’ve created, laughter and concern seem equally appropriate.

The meaning of the show’s title, Five Years in Horse Time, is two-fold. In a literal interpretation, these pieces were all made in the last five years of my practice. The title also references the theme of warped timelines that run through the work. What is time in an exaggerated cartoon animal world where the perspective is often skewed; where sometimes scenes are melty and slowed down, and at other times the action appears to happen suddenly and all at once? It is my hope that time will shift for the viewer also, as they engage with this work and linger for a bit in this uncanny world I’ve created.