Ronald Jackson's 'An American Fiction' at Galerie Myrtis

Key facts

• Ronald Jackson's solo exhibition 'An American Fiction' is on view at Galerie Myrtis in Baltimore from September 5 to October 3.
• The exhibition features new oil paintings that imagine a screenplay with characters and their actors.
• Each painting is titled with a character name and the actor playing them, e.g., 'Pervis Brown: The Apprentice of Oddly Uncommon Trades, played by Cornelius Dunston in AN AMERICAN FICTION.'
• Jackson's work is inspired by the film 'American Fiction,' directed by Cord Jefferson, based on Percival Everett's novel 'Erasure.'
• The film's protagonist, Thelonious 'Monk' Ellison, describes his writing as 'inventing little people in my mind and make them have conversations with each other.'
• Jackson's paintings often include masks, which he says signal that a rich, un-excavated narrative exists beneath the surface.
• His earlier work featured a recurring character named Johnnie Mae King, for whom he invited the public to imagine backstories through flash fiction.
• The exhibition runs from September 5 to October 3 at Galerie Myrtis in Baltimore.