Asa Jackson – Paradise Found: Where Heaven and Earth Meet

Les Yeux du Monde is pleased to present Paradise Found: Where Heaven and Earth Meet, an inaugural solo exhibition of work by new gallery artist Asa Jackson. The exhibition opens with a reception on Friday, April 10, from 5–7PM, with remarks from the artist at 6PM. In his newest body of work, Jackson turns toward landscape as a site of spiritual inquiry, interrogating the boundary between the physical and the ethereal.

Known for a creative practice that explores textile as an anthropological record, Jackson recontextualizes found materials from disparate countries, time periods, and personal histories, transforming fabric into visual narrative. Using pattern, repetition, and tactility, his fiber-based work reflects on time, collective consciousness, and the ways in which personal origins inform present understandings.

The works in this exhibition continue Jackson’s ongoing series, The King’s Cord, which investigates the materiality and symbolism of corduroy. Referencing the historical translation of the French Corde du Roi—or “Cord of the King”—the title positions the textile as a charged medium through which Jackson examines notions of sovereignty. The series meditates on autonomy as it pertains to both outer and inner life–with particular emphasis on the inner, self-governed kingdoms of the mind.

In Paradise Found, elements of nature anchor a visual language that Jackson creates to explore the interior landscape of the human spirit. Works in the exhibition employ a two-point perspective, serving simultaneously as expansive horizons and intricate topographies of an imagined kingdom. Rather than depicting specific locales, they represent vistas of the mind—visions drawn from an inner realm in which mountains, temples, starry skies, and shifting waters coexist within a single symbolic terrain. Together, these works function as maps that trace the contours of a world where the terrestrial and the transcendent meet.

Per the artist:

“These landscapes point toward the experience of returning to oneself—an awareness of oneness that many traditions describe as realization, peace, or communion with the divine.

In this sense, imagination is not separate from reality but the catalyst through which reality is formed. The inner and outer worlds mirror one another; the landscapes of the mind shape the world we inhabit.”

The title of the exhibition references John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which tells the story of humanity’s fall from grace. In contrast, Paradise Found imagines a return. Jackson’s landscapes become a pathway back to unity, suggesting that paradise is not a distant place, but a state of awareness discovered within—the inner terrain where heaven and earth meet.

Asa Jackson studied sociology at Boston University before establishing a career as both a celebrated artist and influential arts leader. His practice has earned international recognition, highlighted by features with Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery of Luxembourg at EXPO Chicago and his 2025 European debut at Art Brussels. Jackson’s work is held in numerous significant private and public collections, including that of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Mint Museum, and the Rockwell Museum. A recent acquisition by the University of Virginia’s Contemplative Sciences Center marks another significant milestone for the artist. The works in Paradise Found originate from the same series as this institutional commission, and share a deep conceptual connection to the mission of the Contemplative Sciences Center. As an arts leader, Jackson is the former director of 670 Gallery and co-founder of the CAN Foundation in Newport News, a nonprofit dedicated to building sustainable careers for artists. He currently serves as the President and CEO of the McColl Center, the prestigious artist residency program in Charlotte, North Carolina.