Matthew Day Jackson (b. 1974)

Using found materials, Matthew Day Jackson's sculptures appropriate the cultural symbolism of everyday objects to reassemble visions of American identity. Hanging from the ceiling as primitive mobile, Hung, Drawn and Quartered II is an abject effigy of a lynching. Constructed primarily of a tree branch, Jackson draws upon a romantic heritage, converting his felled utopia into an animistic totem: adding boggle eyes, scythe handle legs, leather studded stockings, and dangling Birkenstock feet. Uniting references to colonial optimism, native mysticism, pioneering technology, socialism, and hippie fashion, Jackson executes a portrait of lost ideals.