Petit, Jackson

Jackson Petit (born 1983, Nassau, The Bahamas) is a painter and film-maker. His paintings are dazzling collages of mythical and tribal imagery and local flora and fauna. Using the glazing method, but with acrylic instead of the traditional oil paint, Jackson applies many thin layers of paint to achieve depth; the acrylic allows him to work with bright, otherworldly colors, drawing light into the canvas. Figures operate as receptacles or vessels for messages or movements. They rarely have open eyes so rather than making a connection, the viewer remains the voyeur. Your eyes wander easily from figure to the layers of patterns and traces, which are further abstracted with triangular divisions, creating abstract surfaces to figurative paintings.

Petit is a graduate from The College of The Bahamas and Toronto Film College, Canada. From 1998 to 2004 he was a participant in the FINCO Summer Art Workshops and has taken part in numerous group exhibitions. He won The Central Bank of The Bahamas Art competition six times in various categories and received top honors in the CLICO Caribbean Art Competition in 2003.

After taking a Filmmakers Workshop and screenwriting series, Petit worked as a production assistant and produced several short films. Jackson and his brother Bernard Petit, also operate a film company, Small Art Pictures.

In 2015, the brothers developed Haitianary, a comprehensive and challenging exhibition at The D'Aguilar Art Foundation. The artists celebrated their Haitian heritage with a new body of work that highlighted the difficulties and celebrated the cultural influence of the Haitian-Bahamian community.

Petit currently works at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas developing art related film and video projects.