Bert Jackson is a visual artist based in the Toronto area.  His work includes sculpture, painting, illustration, and the art of tattooing.  He loves to travel, to experience art and life in it’s great and bountiful diversity.  Jackson is inspired by a wide range of influences: traditional European oil painting, bronze statuary, Eastern art, tattooing, contemporary art, etc.  He started making art at a young age, and has reinvented his style on a number of occasions.

In his own words:
“A common thread throughout my practice and through the various stages along the way is an interest in figurative work including the animal kingdom, with a treatment that spans the literal to the mythological.  Since the beginning I have had a passion for depicting the animal world.  I am a keen environmentalist even before it became popular in the nineties.  That figures into the work; this is true.  Beyond that there is a genuine love and passion for the natural world. I am seeking what many artists have searched for – to uncover and explore beauty in life, nature, and the human form.  I am also interested in truth; depicting the true essence of a subject even if the subject is fantasy or imagination.  The emotion or symbolism can still express something genuine.

“As a young boy I did a lot of drawing and plasticine sculptures of monsters and dinosaurs and superheroes and spacemen.  I grew up (assuming that I did grow up) on Tintin and Maurice Sendak and fairytales and mythology.  There was lots of fantasy influence, and sci-fi.  I read “The Chronicles of Narnia” and Tolkien when I was young.   I loved that stuff.  I was always fascinated by the theme of The Quest, the quest for the Holy Grail, saving a princess, fighting a dragon, etc.  Typical boyhood stuff, I just never grew out of it.  So naturally, I became an artist.  My aunt, Wook Kyung Choi was a well known artist in Korea, and she was a big influence on my creative process and my pursuit of an art career.  When I am not spending time with my wife and little girl, I divide my energy between the tattoo shop and the art studio.   

“When I was in my twenties, I was fascinated by modern and contemporary art.  I loved Picasso and the surrealists and all the cheeky artists that poked fun or took the piss, or just plain horsed around.  I would ignore the Met in favor of the MOMA for example.  Now my taste and experience has swung the other way.  I love galleries along the lines of the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay.  At this stage I enjoy it all and take it for what it is from the up and coming galleries on Queen St to what is considered the great art of the ages to guerilla style graffiti art. 
  
In the last couple of years, I have been doing mostly commission work.  Now I wish to focus on my own body of work.  At this point, at the tender age of forty, the disparate artistic pursuits are coalescing into a discernible whole.   I hope you enjoy viewing the work as much as I enjoyed making it.”