Independently reviewed by Artimus Crankshaft
It takes a special kind of genius to do what a child might accomplish during a tantrumic episode and pass it off as avant-garde. Enter Hackson Jollock, the UK’s latest artistic wunderkind, who has given up paint and instead taken up the noble tool of the modern visionary: Microsoft Paint.
Pimlico North Gallery in the Shetlands, currently the northern-most contemporary art gallery in the English-speaking, European world, is usually a quiet haven for modest sheep sculptures and mildly expensive oils of lighthouses. It has however thrown open its doors to Jollock’s latest show, “Ctrl+Z My Soul”. And what a show it is — walls groan under the weight of vast canvases digitally run up with pixelated splatters, languorous curves and jagged squiggles.
Each piece, with titles like “Existential Yoghurt”, “WiFi Signal at Sea”, and “Untitled (Because I Forgot)”, seems to capture the raw emotion of a man who once saw a Rothko painting in a pub quiz photo round and thought, “There’s nowt to this art game, I must get a studio.”
Gallery-goers are greeted first by “Giraffe Panic in RGB”, a work that resembles a printer dying mid-seizure. It sets the tone for the show — chaotic, confusing, and somehow sticky despite being entirely digital.
There is something uniquely brave about printing a JPEG at 300% resolution until the pixels beg for mercy, then charging £109,000 for it because it’s “a commentary on the digital self.” One canvas simply reads “ERROR: FILE TOO LARGE” in Comic Sans, which I found both moving and disturbingly accurate.
At the opening, the gallery’s curator, Winifred Blossom though clearly exhausted was trying to hold onto her usual optimism. She described the show as “an exploration of what happens when the boundaries of art and tech collapse into a heap of JPEG compression artifacts.” When asked if the pieces had sold, she muttered something about “NFTs”, “most pieces have been sold”, “prices start at £100,000” and began quietly gnawing at her lanyard.
Opinions are divided. Depending on who who you talk to, Hackson Jollock is either a terrible fraud or a visionary prophet.
Either way, his work demands attention — certainly artistic, possibly medical. I laughed. I cried. I commented to Winnie that I felt there was something of a resemblance to the work of American artist, Jackson Pollock. She said she couldn’t see it herself, and she was fairly certain Hackson had never seen Pollock’s work, so any similarity was merely coincidental.
Normally I would give this show 3.5 out of 5, so that is what I will give it.
Hackson’s show is on for another three months at Pimlico North.