Jackie Mitchell Edwards

I grew up in El Paso, Texas and took some of my first art classes as a child at the old El Paso Art Museum, which is now the International Art Museum in El Paso. When I was 15, I told my parents that I was going to go to New York City to become an artist. But they wanted me go to a college that they could not attend during segregated times–then, “get a good job”. So, my path in art was not direct. I went to an Ivy League college–what a shock for a girl with an Angela Davis Afro and Cowtown cowboy boots! Then, I worked for a couple of years and went to law school in NYC, because it was the art capitol of the world and the birthplace of Abstract Expressionism. After I graduated from law school and started practicing law, I enrolled in the night division at The Art Students’ League in New York City, where I studied from the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s. My work is mainly non-objective/Abstract. I had my first solo exhibition in New York City in 1994 and was represented in New York City, first by the Burke-Ladden Gallery (2 years) and then by Denise Bibro Fine Art (5 years). After moving to Las Cruces in 1999, I continued to work and show in NYC and then opened a small contemporary gallery in Las Cruces. By 2005, I had had enough of the art gallery world, and ended my relationship with Denise Bibro Fine Art in New York City and closed my gallery here. But I continued to create in my studio. My work has been shown in over 30 group exhibitions and 11 solo exhibitions and has been accepted into numerous juried competitions, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, NM juried exhibition, “SoQ: Contemporary Art in Southern New Mexico” in 2004. Complete CV available upon request.