Associate Professor Stefanie Jackson’s painting Bluest Eye (1999) is featured in the exhibition Stony the Road We Trod at the Georgia Museum of Art honoring Black History Month. This exhibition is on view until April 28, 2019.

Stony the Road We Trod reimagines southern identity through the lens of the African American experience. With roots or careers in Georgia, these artists comment on themes of personal and collective struggle as well as beauty and cultural heritage unique to the South. This year’s national theme for Black History Month is “Black Migrations,” and many of these works relate to how African American artists visually responded to notions of migration, particularly from the rural South, or crafted responses to new environments and urban center.

Stefanie Jackson is an American painter whose art deals with themes of African American history and contemporary U.S. politics. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Jackson received her BFA from Parsons The New School for Design in 1979 and her MFA from Cornell University in 1988. Jackson's paintings draw on her own life experience as well as broader issues of social justice. Her influences span a broad range of styles, including surrealism and African American literature. One major influence on Jackson's work is Southern blues music and culture. Much of Jackson's work deals with major events in U.S. and African American history. Her art has responded to the Atlanta Race Riots, the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, issues of public housing in Detroit and New Orleans, and the French colonial history of New Orleans.