Constructing the Self Through Unanswered Images

Jason Driskill

Jason Driskill is a digital collage artist from the southeastern United States, currently based in southwest China. His practice centers on questions of self, desire, masculinity, and the construction of identity through the recombination of found imagery.

From an early age, he was already drawing on walls, holding onto the idea that he would become an artist, even if he never fully understood what that meant. Now at fifty, Driskill continues to question and redefine that identity.

During his undergraduate studies in painting, he began working with self-portraiture and digitally manipulated imagery as source material. Placing himself within the work transformed both his process and his engagement with themes of gender and identity. In graduate school, he continued this exploration while shifting from painting to digital collage and video.

Although he once considered animation and painting as primary directions, Driskill ultimately found digital imaging to be the most suitable medium for his concerns. Even when experimenting with printmaking or video, his ideas tend to return to Photoshop-based collage and digital output.

His work engages with gender, masculinity, the male body, desire and desirability, as well as subject–object relationships. For Driskill, digital collage offers a way to approach questions that resist clear answers. At times, the process feels like looking into a mirror — a form of self-reflection — while at other moments, it becomes a gesture of turning that mirror outward, asking society to confront itself. The answers may remain unresolved, but the act itself holds meaning.

His process involves obsessively searching through archives of old magazines, advertisements, and historical materials, selecting images intuitively before organizing them within a strict visual structure. He often seeks symmetry, balance, or geometric order, while maintaining a space for intuition. Sometimes he inserts himself into the composition; other times, found or personal images occupy that role, or the structure stands on its own.

Driskill’s relationship with education was initially skeptical, seeing it as a means to obtain a degree rather than knowledge. However, once he engaged with courses such as figure drawing, printmaking, and contemporary art theory, his perspective shifted. Academic discourse became integral to his understanding of both art and the world, and continues to inform his practice, as well as his interest in teaching.

In his collages, he brings together coded symbols and visual fragments from history and popular culture within what he considers a kind of “non-space” — an intentionally neutral picture plane that resists fixed location. In more narrative works, however, he often returns to specific places from his childhood and adolescence, as these sites are closely tied to the conflicts he seeks to explore.

Driskill sees his work as situated within a constantly shifting social and cultural landscape, where technology and changing values reshape perception. While his practice is rooted in examining his own sense of self, he remains aware that identity is shaped and constrained by broader systems — including laws, beliefs, social norms, and cultural expectations.

Like many artists, he contends with self-doubt, distraction, and fluctuating motivation. After moving to China, he stepped away from digital collage for several years, focusing instead on cultural adaptation and teaching. His work also raises ongoing questions around copyright, authorship, and the value of digital art. Existing between categories, his practice resists clear classification — it resembles printmaking, graphic design, and photography, yet fully belongs to none. Still, Driskill continues to create, trusting that the work will eventually find its audience.

Living in China has further shaped his thinking, particularly around identity and belonging. As a foreigner, he exists in a cultural space where he is both inside and outside, never fully able to assimilate. This perspective contrasts with his earlier experience in the United States, where, as a queer individual, he often felt like an outsider without clear explanation. These experiences now inform new directions in his work, including explorations of culture, race, and the boundaries between inside and outside.

For Driskill, questions of belonging and self-acceptance remain central. Looking ahead, he acknowledges that issues of age and aging will eventually enter his work — though he is not yet ready to fully confront them.

Last Updated 26.05.08

Auraland Art

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