About
Jack Dickson is a British artist of mixed Scottish and Zambian heritage, born in Nigeria and raised across Zambia, Scotland and England. Growing up between cultures — belonging partially and simultaneously to more than one world — is not simply biographical background: it is the ground from which his practice grows.
His work has always been concerned with questions of identity, hybridity and place: what it means to carry more than one cultural home within you, and to live with the longing it produces. These are not abstract concerns. They come from lived experience — from a life shaped by migration, multiple belonging, and the particular condition of never quite arriving anywhere completely.
He first investigated these questions of belonging and hybridity as a student — in conceptual, installation-based work. His path back to sustained practice, after long stretches away from the studio, was through the figure and from around 2019, portraiture became the form in which those early questions found new ground.
In his current portraits, place and context are always present — but encoded rather than stated. Through the use of collage and mixed media, topographical maps, street plans, textile patterns, cultural objects and landscape, fragments are layered into backgrounds and clothing, partially obscured, hinting at the worlds a subject carries. Each element has been chosen; nothing is decorative. The work asks you to stay, to look slowly, to discover — and in doing so, to experience something of the accumulation that makes a life.
His work describes what hybridity and displacement look like. What he is working toward — through ongoing research, encounter and studio practice — is work that evokes what this feels like: work that allows someone who has lived at a threshold between worlds to recognise their own experience, without either belonging or longing declared the winner. That is where his practice is heading.
Jack has a sustained national television profile including BBC One's Extraordinary Portraits (Series 4 and 5), Make it at Market and Sky Arts' Portrait Artist of the Year. His work is held in public collections including the National Portrait Gallery's online collection and the Guildhall, City of London Corporation. He has exhibited widely including a solo show at the Russell Cotes Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, and group shows at Somerset House, Gallery 8 St James's, and Mall Galleries, London. He is a member of Dorset Visual Arts and an associate member of Boscombe Radical Arts Collective.
Exhibitions
2025 - Bright & Beautiful, group show, Jubilee Hall, Poundbury, Dorset
2025 - We Rise, group show The Lighthouse, Poole
2025 - Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2025, online Longlist exhibition, https://ruthborchard.org.uk
2025 - Traces, group show, 54 The Gallery, Shepherd Market, Mayfair, London
2025 - Extraordinary Portraits (Bradford City of Culture), group show, The Loading Bay, Bradford
2024 - Dorset Arts Week, Hall & Woodhouse, Blandford Forum, Dorset
2024 - Spring Exhibition, group show, London Lighthouse Gallery, London City Island
2024 - Nosakhari Able-Graphy*, 56a Old Broad Street, London
2023 - Game Changers, group show, The Riverhouse, Richmond, London
2023 - Movements That Matter, group show BHM, CasildART, London
2023 - Portrait of a Top Boy (Netflix), group exhibition curated by Ronan McKenzie, Somerset House, London
2023 - Art Unlimited Open, Bridport Art Centre, Bridport, Dorset
2023 - Six at Eight, group show, Gallery 8, Duke Street, St James's, London
2022 - New Histories and Old Stories, solo show, Russell Cotes Gallery, Bournemouth
2022 - 169th RWA Annual Open, RWA, Bristol
2022 - Fusion, group show, 54 The Gallery, Mayfair, London
2022 - Dorset Arts Week, group show, Knighton House, Durweston, Dorset
2021 - Dorset Arts Week, group show, Bryanston School, Dorset
2018 - Artizan Summer Open, Artizan Gallery, Torquay, Devon
2016 - Bryanston Today, group show, Mall Galleries, London
2014 - The Collective, group show, Valentine Gallery, Blandford Forum, Dorset
2012 - Nine, group show, Valentine Gallery, Blandford Forum, Dorset
2011 - Nine, group show, Guggleton Gallery, Stalbridge, Dorset
2009 - The Presidents New Shirt, solo show, Artist Residence, Brighton
Significant Commissions & Residencies
2026 - Hall & Woodhouse 250th Anniversary Portrait
2024 - Nosakhari Able -Graphy*, commissioned piece to launch London Fashion Week
2024 - Dorset Visual Arts, 2-month residency at Hall & Woodhouse, Blandford Forum, Dorset
2023 - Portrait of a Top Boy, Netflix commission and exhibition, Somerset House, London
2023 - Portrait of a Top Boy, National Portrait Gallery (online collection)
2023 - Voltalia and City of London Corporation, commissioned work on permanent display in the Guildhall, City of London
2023 - Portrait of the Head, Talbot Heath School, Dorset
Media & Television
2026 - Extraordinary Portraits, Series 5, BBC One (Chatterbox Media)
2025 - Extraordinary Portraits, Series 4, Episode 2, BBC One (Chatterbox Media)
2023 - Make it At Market, Series 1, Episode 13, BBC One (Flabbergast TV)
2020 - Sky Portrait Artist of the Year, Series 7, Episode 7, Sky Arts, (Storyvault Films)