Week 3: Research – Visual Arts

Rita Ackerman

Rita Ackerman is a Hungarian-American artist and based in New York.

In an article Ackerman says that sometimes she paints over old paintings, “…paintings which don’t resurrect from their dead state won’t leave the studio anyway, no matter if there is a deadline. It is hard for me to give up on a painting, simply because I hate to trash layers and layers of labor… I would paint it over and over for years until it comes to life.” I thought this was a really cool way to create layers, by building on top of something old rather than starting again.

https://www.hauserwirth.com/ursula/24168-rita-ackermann-new-paintings

In the link and Youtube video above, we see Ackerman working, she is smearing paint with her hands, paint brushes and random objects. She builds layers by drawing onto the canvas and then by adding paint. There is some painting were you we can faintly see a figure and others it is a disarray, there is nothing coherent.

Ackerman said while she works, she doesn’t really think, “When I paint, I’m not thinking — only occasionally do I have a grasp of that that state of ‘not thinking’ and I try to write it down. Writing is more exact for something so elusive to describe. For me, it is difficult to speak about the paintings at all. I don’t like to describe what I paint because I cannot; if I could, I wouldn’t paint it.” I find this really evident in her work, there is nothing overworked or perfected, you can see how she looses herself in her works.

Rita Ackermann: New Paintings - Hauser & Wirth — *Mama 3*, 2019.

Community - Resources — Rita Ackermann. Turning Air Blue | Hauser & Wirth — *Nude 21,* 2017.

Rita Ackermann at Hauser & Wirth Gallery – new york art tours — *Mama, Midnight Summer Dream, 2019.* Oil, Acrylic and ink on linen.

I love the fluidity of Ackerman’s works and how she uses pencil and paint in her works- these are things that I would like to bring into my own work.

Noah Davis

Noah Davis was an American Painter and painted black figures in his works as he said in Dazed magazine the he painted black people as a way to “show black people in normal scenarios, where drugs and guns are nothing to do with it. You rarely see black people represented independent of the civil rights issues or social problems that go on in the States. I’m looking to move on from that stage, we can’t keep tying our culture to a movement that happened two generations ago.”

In his work, Davis used washes of paint, the drips of the paint is evident, running down the canvas. He also used minimal brushwork to paint his figures, utilising blocks of colour to show depth/shadows. I also really love his use of soft/muted colours. These are attributes that I would like to use in my work.

The 'Mad Genius' Painter Noah Davis Died at Just 32. Now David Zwirner Gallery Is Doing Its Best to Make Him a Legend | Artnet News — *Untitled,* (2015).

Noah Davis (1983-2015) • MOCA — Noah Davis, *Untitled*, 2015, oil on canvas,

Noah Davis | The Messenger (2008) | Artsy — The Messenger, 2008

Holly Warburtorn

Holly Warburton is an illustrator and contemporary artist based in Bath, England. She often works in digital format as well as paint/paper. In her work, she often layers different colours using sketch-like pencil drawings, using translucent layers to build depth and shadows. Her colourful works are reminiscent of impressionist painters such as Matisse, using a whirl of bright colours in their works.

Warburton says that doing observational sketches really help with her creative process as, “It is also a way of letting go of perfection and embracing the sketchy, imperfect qualities of drawing.”

Her faint and sketchy lines and bright use of colours is something I would like to try out and and experiment with.