Alison Jackson
Encyclopedia
Alison Jackson is an English
artist
known for her lookalike photographs of celebrities
. She has won a BAFTA for BBC 2's series Doubletake
. She has also had three collections of her photographic work published.
as an adult student. Here she established herself as an abstract painter with a difference, completing a small number of critically acclaimed works. Soon after, in 1997, her graduation piece, Crucifix, was the first exhibit at A Gallery
, and was priced at £1,500 (five years later valued at ten times that amount). Jackson went on to gain her MA in Fine Art Photography from the Royal College of Art
, London
.
She became notorious in England in 1999 for producing black-and-white
photograph
s including images that apparently showed Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed
with a mixed-race love child
. The photographs were part of her graduation series entitled Mental Images. She has gone on to produce similarly obscured photos and films of celebrity look-alikes in surprising, shocking or strange situations, portraying them, as she has described it, 'depicting our suspicions'.
With reference to Alison Jackson's iconic image of Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed with a mixed race love child, Jackson says, "I started making work about Diana as a national icon at the time of her death. Millions mourned her through her image. Most of them did not know her in person; they only "knew" her through photos, TV etc. I thought I would make images of her, using a lookalike, to explore our perception of her and our fantasies about her love life."
Alison Jackson was the artist behind BBC Two
's series Doubletake
, for which she won a BAFTA. She has recently depicted George W. Bush
and Tony Blair
lookalikes in a series of 'behind the facade' scenes, and has produced a film devoted to the latter which coincided with his exit from office entitled Blaired Vision, shown on Channel 4
on 26 June 2007. On 1 April 2011 the artist launched a new online celebrity news site in conjunction with the launch of her third book 'Up The Aisle', 300 images of her take on the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Her numerous replicas of the couple in various positions and settings are on display at London's Ben Brown Gallery. Alison is also developing a new series for American television.
She is also an Ambassador to the Spinal Injuries Association.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
known for her lookalike photographs of celebrities
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
. She has won a BAFTA for BBC 2's series Doubletake
Doubletake (TV series)
Doubletake was a BBC comedy programme, created by Alison Jackson. It made extensive use of celebrity look-alikes playing their doubles in apparently embarrassing situations, seen through CCTV cameras and amateur video, using distance shots and shaky camera-work to disguise the true identity of...
. She has also had three collections of her photographic work published.
Biography
Jackson graduated with BA (Hons) in Fine Art Sculpture from the Chelsea College of Art and DesignChelsea College of Art and Design
Chelsea College of Art and Design, the erstwhile Chelsea School of Art, is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation...
as an adult student. Here she established herself as an abstract painter with a difference, completing a small number of critically acclaimed works. Soon after, in 1997, her graduation piece, Crucifix, was the first exhibit at A Gallery
A Gallery
The A Gallery was a contemporary art gallery in Wimbledon, London run by Fraser Kee Scott.The gallery was founded in 1997. Its first exhibit was by then-recent graduate Alison Jackson. In 2004, the gallery exhibited a sculpture by Marie White of a nude female; some members of the public complained...
, and was priced at £1,500 (five years later valued at ten times that amount). Jackson went on to gain her MA in Fine Art Photography from the Royal College of Art
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
She became notorious in England in 1999 for producing black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
photograph
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...
s including images that apparently showed Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed
Dodi Al-Fayed
Emad El-Din Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed , known as Dodi Fayed , was an Egyptian film producer. He was best known internationally as the boyfriend of Diana, Princess of Wales, with whom he died in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris along with driver Henri Paul on 31 August...
with a mixed-race love child
Love child
"Love child" is a euphemism for a child born out of wedlock. See Legitimacy .Love child may also refer to:In music:* Lovechild , an indie rock band from Belfast, Northern Ireland...
. The photographs were part of her graduation series entitled Mental Images. She has gone on to produce similarly obscured photos and films of celebrity look-alikes in surprising, shocking or strange situations, portraying them, as she has described it, 'depicting our suspicions'.
With reference to Alison Jackson's iconic image of Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed with a mixed race love child, Jackson says, "I started making work about Diana as a national icon at the time of her death. Millions mourned her through her image. Most of them did not know her in person; they only "knew" her through photos, TV etc. I thought I would make images of her, using a lookalike, to explore our perception of her and our fantasies about her love life."
Alison Jackson was the artist behind BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
's series Doubletake
Doubletake (TV series)
Doubletake was a BBC comedy programme, created by Alison Jackson. It made extensive use of celebrity look-alikes playing their doubles in apparently embarrassing situations, seen through CCTV cameras and amateur video, using distance shots and shaky camera-work to disguise the true identity of...
, for which she won a BAFTA. She has recently depicted George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
lookalikes in a series of 'behind the facade' scenes, and has produced a film devoted to the latter which coincided with his exit from office entitled Blaired Vision, shown on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
on 26 June 2007. On 1 April 2011 the artist launched a new online celebrity news site in conjunction with the launch of her third book 'Up The Aisle', 300 images of her take on the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Her numerous replicas of the couple in various positions and settings are on display at London's Ben Brown Gallery. Alison is also developing a new series for American television.
She is also an Ambassador to the Spinal Injuries Association.
TV work
- 2010 TBA: Get Out Of My Way, I'm a Lookalike (In Production)
- 2009 ITV1: The South Bank Show - 'Alison Jackson on Warhol
- 2008 BBC2: Through the KeyholeThrough the KeyholeThrough the Keyhole was a British panel game, hosted by Sir David Frost where panellists are given a video tour of a mystery famous guest's property and attempt to identify them. As of 1996, it is produced by David Frost's own production company, Paradine Productions at The Leeds Studios , and has...
guest home owner first broadcast on 28 May - 2007 Channel 4Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
: Blaired Vision - 2006 Channel 4: SvenSven-Göran ErikssonSven-Göran Eriksson , in Sweden commonly referred to just by his nickname Svennis, is a Swedish ex-football manager. From October 2010 to October 2011 he managed Football League Championship side Leicester City....
: The Cash, The Coach & his Lovers - 2006 Channel 4: Tony BlairTony BlairAnthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, Rock Star - 2005 Channel 4: The Secret Election
- 2005 Channel 4: Not the Royal WeddingWedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker BowlesThe wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker Bowles took place in a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall, on 9 April 2005. The ceremony, conducted in the presence of the couples' families, was followed by a Church of England service of blessing at St George's Chapel...
- 2004/5 Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
, NBCNBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago... - 2003 DoubletakeDoubletake (TV series)Doubletake was a BBC comedy programme, created by Alison Jackson. It made extensive use of celebrity look-alikes playing their doubles in apparently embarrassing situations, seen through CCTV cameras and amateur video, using distance shots and shaky camera-work to disguise the true identity of...
Christmas special - 2003 Doubletake. BBC2. Created, directed, wrote and produced 6 part series based on Mental Images
- 2002 Doubletake. BBC2. Created, directed, wrote special. BAFTA
- 2001-2003 Schweppes UK: advertisingAdvertisingAdvertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
campaign. Created concept, devised ideas and photographed
Solo art exhibitions
- 2011 Ben Brown Fine Arts, London, UK
- 2011 Hayward Gallery, London, UK
- 2011 SF Moma, San Francisco, US
- 2009 J. Sheekey, London, UK
- 2008 Hamiltons Gallery, London (www.hamiltonsgallery.com) 15 April - 23 May
- 2007 M+B, Los Angeles, US (www.mbfala.com)
- 2004 Julie Saul, New York, US
- 2004 Photo, London, UK
- 2003 The Richard Salmon Gallery, London 'Mental Images on War'
- 2002 The Musee de la Photographie a Charleroi, Brussels, Belgium
- 2001 Jerwood Space, London 'Mental Images'
- 2000 The Richard Salmon Gallery, London, UK
- 1999 The Richard Salmon Gallery, London, UK
- 1997 Attix Studio Gloucester Road, London, UK
Group exhibitions
- 2010 Tate Modern, SF Moma, Exposed 2010, UK
- 2008 Tate Liverpool, Liverpool Biennial, UK
- 2008 Liverpool Biennial, UK
- 2008 The New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK 'Starstruck'
- 2007 Paris Photo
- 2006 Mak Museum, Vienna
- 2005 Kunsthalle, Vienna: Superstars
- 2004 Hayward Gallery. London About Face. Photography and the Death of the Portrait
- 2004 PhotoLondon
- 2003 Musee de l'eysee, Lusanne.
- 2003 ICP International Center of Photography, New York
- 2002 Paris Photo, Louvre.
- 2000 Art 2000 London
- 2000 Edinburgh Festival
- 1999 The Royal Festival Hall, London. Articultural Show
- 1999 The Blue Gallery. Temple of Diana Show curated by Neal Brown
Books
- 2011 Alison Jackson 'Up The Aisle', Quadrille
- 2007 Alison Jackson Confidential, Taschen
External links
- Official website
- TED Talks: Alison Jackson looks at celebrity at TED GlobalTED (conference)TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....
in 2005