World-renowned artist Paul Jackson details his unlikely journey into the art world.
Paul Jackson failed his art class in high school. Now, he is a world-renowned watercolorist. After receiving the International Science and Engineering Fair scholarship, Paul was able to leave his high school in Mississippi and start college at Mississippi State University at only 16 years old. Initially, he planned to go into science and engineering—until he discovered art.
“My adviser said, ‘Well, you’re pretty young for college. You should go take some electives before you go into your core classes,’ ” Paul says. “They sent me over to the art department, and I never went back.”
Becoming an artist
Inside Paul’s house, which is adorned with his own ceiling-high paintings, mosaic-tiled murals bursting with color, preserved insects, and jewel-toned stained glass, he explains that even at a young age, he rapidly excelled to the top of his college art classes.
“I had no idea that you could actually be an artist,” Paul says.
After graduating from college in 1985, he became an art director for a magazine, which went bankrupt three months later. Due to this, he decided to get his masters degree at the University of Missouri at Columbia in pursuit of fine arts. To pay for school, he began selling his pieces at art festivals. At the time, most of the subjects of his paintings featured things that were lying around, like tubes of paint, colored pencils, and crayons, Paul says.
Paul was successful at selling his art at festivals. “I made a lot of new fans and clients, and I sold my artwork along the way,” Paul says. “I branched out and started doing festivals from New York to California.” For almost two decades, he attended about 40 art festivals a year. Since then, he has become embedded in the art community.
Rising to the top
Paul has a studio in Columbia, where he holds online workshops about the mechanics of watercolor. Besides teaching online, he travels across the globe teaching art.
“I was always told watercolor is an unpredictable medium, and you have to go with what it gives you, that it’s not controllable, and it’s not forgiving. None of those things are true,” Paul explains. “I’ve figured out what nobody taught me about watercolor, and as soon as I did, I started teaching others.”
Paul has won many prestigious awards and been given honors, including becoming a signature member of the American Watercolor Society and receiving the Dolphin Fellowship, which Paul says is the highest honor in watercolor. He has also been a judge at national and international art competitions.
His artwork has been featured in Forbes and The New York Times. He has also authored two books: The Wandering Watercolorist, a collection of his artwork, and Painting Spectacular Light Effects in Watercolor, which explains the effect of light on glass, metal, water, and architecture.
His artwork has also been featured at the Missouri State Capitol and the Governor’s Mansion in Jefferson City. Most recently, he has created Jackson Art Properties, a company dedicated to bringing exceptional artwork into the world.
As he has grown as an artist, most of the subjects of his paintings revolve around what he is most passionate about at that moment, and the common thread between his paintings is dramatic lighting, Paul says.
“I never want to be pigeonholed into painting the same thing over and over,” Paul says. “That is my idea of torture.”
His paintings can take anywhere from three days to three weeks to complete, depending on whether he is painting while teaching a workshop or taking his time in the studio.
Finding his passion
Paul has dedicated his life to painting because it’s his form of escapism and a means to show people he has something to say.
“Being an artist is like a contradiction,” Paul says. “We have something we are desperate to say and communicate with other people, yet in order to do so, it requires a lot of alone time.”
One of his most famous paintings, Lost in the Moment, made during the covid-19 pandemic, features a scene in New Orleans. In the painting, a group of people in white hazmat gear are walking one way down a street, while behind them, a group of people dressed in black and white are playing instruments and dancing while heading in the opposite direction. In the foreground, watching it all, is a young girl with pigtails in a pale pink dress who holds a sign that has been set down on the street.
“It was sort of a zeitgeist moment,” Paul says. “I like to say, ‘Once every two or three decades, I have a good idea.’ It was my summation of our collective experience during covid.”
Another prize-winning painting Paul has created is Chrysalis 2024, which features objects from his home, such as brightly colored orange, red, purple, and blue glass vases and bottles, as well as preserved and framed butterflies. Behind the objects, light streams through a window, bouncing off the collection and casting shadows.
Yet, despite receiving numerous accolades for his work, Paul says, “I have my best work in me still.”
To learn more or sign up for workshops, visit PaulJackson.com.
All photos courtesy of Paul Jackson.
The article was printed in the November/December issue of Missouri Life.
