Born: 1998, Dallas, Texas
Current Location: Kansas City, Missouri
Website: jacksondaughety.com
Instagram: @daughetyjack
Biography
Jackson Daughety’s path into art began through one of Dallas’ public magnet high schools, where he chose to attend an arts-focused program over more traditional academic paths. While he excelled in school, he found himself drawn more toward creative disciplines than STEM subjects.
Growing up, skateboarding and music became equally formative influences. Both communities taught him how to create without relying on a large audience, valuing authenticity and independent production over commercial success. Watching larger corporations gradually enter skateboarding and reshape its culture became a defining moment, influencing the way he thinks about institutions, commerce, and creative practice. The DIY visual language surrounding skateboarding and music, particularly collage, printmaking, and appropriation, continues to inform his work today.
Artistic Practice
Daughety primarily works with a desktop inkjet printer, scanner, and traditional acrylic painting techniques. His practice centers on appropriation, using photographic material as a starting point for constructing new images. Earlier works reproduced imagery from corporate websites and advertisements belonging to companies such as Amazon, Goldman Sachs, and Lehman Brothers. More recently, he has shifted toward combining fragments from multiple sources into unified compositions, allowing seemingly unrelated subjects to exist within the same visual space.
Rather than pursuing a recognizable style, Daughety is interested in how institutions create style itself. He sees image production as inherently ideological, revealing as much about the systems that produce images as the audiences consuming them. Architectural elements and interior spaces frequently appear throughout his work, while individual subjects are allowed to retain their own visual voice.
His recent work examines the relationship between audiences, performers, government, and power. Influenced by the unprecedented wealth transfers that occurred during the pandemic and the growing concentration of capital, he explores how media increasingly celebrates individuals who possess the resources to act without consequence.
A recurring subject in his current work is MrBeast, whose highly produced YouTube videos have become a symbol of spectacle, entertainment, and contemporary media culture. Daughety sees the internet personality as both fascinating and unsettling, viewing his collaborations with organizations such as Amazon and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as reflective of broader relationships between entertainment, capitalism, and influence.
His influences include sample-based music, internet culture, and artists such as Laurie Simmons, Sherrie Levine, and Arthur Jafa. He also credits the writing surrounding the Pictures Generation and John Oswald’s Plunderphonics essay with helping him understand the historical context of appropriation within contemporary art.
Notable Works & Exhibitions
Daughety has presented several solo and duo exhibitions, including MORE AUTHENTIC at Holsum Gallery in Kansas City, iPad Baby at RO2 Gallery in Dallas, Too Big to Fail at Vulpes Bastille in Kansas City, and Beneath The Spectacle at Crossroads Hotel in Kansas City.
His recent group exhibitions include How to Escape a Whirlpool at Kravets Wehby in New York, Zero! Pressure at RD Madison, Summer Invitational 2026 at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Polyrhythm at Long Story Short in New York, Great Mud Flood at Saw Horse Gallery in Chicago, Cross Dissolve at Dragon Crab Turtle in St. Louis, the Kansas City Art Institute Biennial Alumni Exhibition, and the Kansas City Flatfile & Digitalfile at H&R Block Artspace.
He is also featured in New American Paintings No. 184 and is currently developing a new solo or duo exhibition centered around his ongoing MrBeast series.
Selected Exhibitions
• MORE AUTHENTIC, Holsum Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri, 2022
• iPad Baby, RO2 Gallery, Dallas, Texas, 2023
• Too Big to Fail, Vulpes Bastille, Kansas City, Missouri, 2024
• Beneath The Spectacle, Crossroads Hotel, Kansas City, Missouri, 2025
• How to Escape a Whirlpool, Kravets Wehby, New York, New York, 2026
• Zero! Pressure, RD Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 2026
• Summer Invitational 2026, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, 2026
• Polyrhythm, Long Story Short, New York, New York, 2026
Links & Press
• KC Studio, Artists to Watch
• New American Paintings: Midwest Issue No. 173
• New American Paintings: South Issue No. 174
In His Words
“I think I am just interested in how institutions produce style. Producing images and media is really ideologically revealing, and I am always interested to see what it says about the producer as well as the audience.”
