Alison Jackson

London, 1960
Lives and works in London

"My aim is to explore the blurred boundaries between reality and the imaginary – the gap and confusion between the two. I use lookalikes of celebrities and public figures to create a seemingly real documentary scenario which is in fact a fiction. Likeness becomes real and fantasy touches on the believable. The viewer is suspended in disbelief. I try to highlight the psychological relationship between what we see and what we imagine. This is bound up in our need to look – our voyeurism – and our need to believe.
My work is about simulation. Creating a clone or a copy of the ‘real’ on paper. It is not a fake, it takes the place of the ‘real’ for a moment. As Baudrillard puts it, simulation is different from feigning. Feigning is pretending, such as, feigning illness or pretending to be ill. The subject is not ill, just seeming to be, but ‘simulation threatens the difference between ‘true’ and ‘false’, between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’. Since the simulator produces ‘true’ symptoms – is he ill or not? He cannot be treated objectively either as ‘ill’ or ‘not ill’.’
This is what I aim to do: create likeness of icons where in image – on paper – the simulation of icons, ‘threatens the difference between ‘true’ and ‘false’, between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’.’ The real subject becomes ‘not necessary’. The image or icon is more important and more seductive. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t the ‘real’ icon – as long as it looks like him or her – it creates a temporary confusion. I search for this confusion and aim to create it within my work.
I explore to what extent I should create complete fantasy pictures not connected to anything ‘true’ or ‘real’ and the relevance of the connection to something ‘true’. I believe you cannot rely on your own perception when it comes to photography. I prove the camera lies."

Alison Jackson