Rita Ackermann

Tensions of creation and destruction in the latest paintings from Rita Ackermann, shifting between representation and abstraction

This book brings together Hungarian-born, New York-based Rita Ackermann's (born 1968) Mama paintings--a suite of new paintings in which figures and motifs rise to the surface of canvases, only to dissolve and reappear elsewhere again. In such works as Mama Painting for Mars (2019), repeated figurative imagery and expanses of intense color combine in complex visual currents. In other works, Ackermann's distinctive approach to layering of drawings, yields a framework for a maelstrom of vibrant pigments and textures that seem to advance toward the viewer. Thick layers of impasto and oil stick are vigorously and repeatedly applied and scraped in such works as Mama, Morty Smoking (2019), with both the paintbrush and the artist's bare hands working to shape a site of ancestry and conception.

In addition to a robust plate section containing all of the Mama works to date, this volume also includes a fake interview with Ackermann by filmmaker Harmony Korine.