Exhibition
in Zürich / Switzerland
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- Rita Ackermann: Mama Study 24, 2020, oil, tape, graphite and China marker on paper, 55.9 x 76.2 cm, 22 x 30 in, © Rita Ackermann, Photo Jon Etter
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- Rita Ackermann: Mama, The Best Is Always Yet to Come, 2020, oil, pigment, acrylic, China marker and oil crayon on canvas, 190.5 x 165.1 cm, 75 x 65 in, © Rita Ackermann, Photo Jon Etter
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- Rita Ackermann: Mama Study 11, 2020, oil, oil crayon and graphite on paper, 55.9 x 76.2 cm, 22 x 30 in, © Rita Ackermann, Photo Jon Etter
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- Rita Ackermann: Mama, Skirt on Fire, 2020, oil, acrylic, pigment, and China marker on canvas, 193 x 190.5 cm, 76 x 75 in, © Rita Ackermann, Photo Jon Etter
In an exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Zürich, Hungarian-born, New York-based artist Rita Ackermann presents her latest body of work – a continuation of her ‘Mama’ series – consisting of automatic drawings and paintings on canvas which reveal her persisting interrogation of line, colour and form.
This new suite of paintings on both canvas and paper, feature figures and motifs which rise to the surface only to dissolve and reappear elsewhere again. In Ackermann’s ‘Mama’ series, repeated imagery is often combined with vivid swathes of colour, giving her work a complex visual component that oscillates between abstraction and figuration. Her images are the product of automatic lines and gestures, a subconscious unfolding of form.
Ackermann’s distinctive approach to layering yields a framework for a maelstrom of vibrant pigments and textures that invite and immerse the viewer. In works such as ‘Mama, The Best is Always Yet To Come’ (2020), the weight of the paint’s application combined with the additive and subtractive process of colour and figurative line, evoke a nuanced interior realm. Pastel, pigment, china marker, and oil create a depth of surface, which are scraped away to reveal figures of shattered compositions.
For her new series of works on paper, Ackermann applies oil and china marker to create intimate incarnations of her larger canvases. Titling them as ‘studies’, Ackermann focuses on details of her ‘Mama’ paintings, obscuring various pencil-drawn figures through thick veils of brightly coloured oil paint. ‘Mama ’20’ at Hauser & Wirth Zürich continues Ackermann’s distinctive approach to painting and the coalescence between the personal and collective experience within.
Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1968, Ackermann currently lives and works in New York. Ackermann’s practice manifests in paintings and works on paper that propose a continuous shift between representation and abstraction. Employing a range of media, including oil and acrylic paint, pastel, wax pencil, and raw pigment, her expression hinges on automatic gestures and opposing impulses of creation and destruction.
Gallery hours Tues-Fri 11 am -6 pm, Sat 11 am – 5 pm
Location:
Hauser & Wirth
Limmatstrasse 270
8005 Zürich
Switzerland
