Alexandra Ackerman

Alexandra Ackerman
Iowa City, Iowa, USA

STATEMENT

Painting is the best language I have found to express the curiosity and wonder I feel to be alive and awake on our amazing planet. Much of my imagery comes from my lifelong connection with the life cycle of plants through gardening, farming, and observation of the different landscapes I have visited. My work seeks to bridge the gap between abstraction and representation.

The transformative experience of pregnancy and motherhood have changed me as an artist and given new meaning to the concept of “creation”. I am always striving to balance the roles of mother-creator and artist-creator. During the pandemic I shifted my focus from watercolor to acrylic and mixed media. I began gluing fabric scraps onto wood panels, and painting around and over them. Cutting and gluing felt therapeutic in a time of extreme uncertainty.

I completed a series of twelve acrylic paintings on wood, “Color Stories”, which incorporate elements of collage–bits of fabric, buttons, and string that I have collected over many years. Each piece seeks to find both harmony and balance in color and composition. These twelve paintings lead me to my current body of work, thirty paintings which focus on texture and pattern, inspired by folk art, botanical art, aboriginal art, and quilts.

BIO

Originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Alexandra Ackerman grew up a keen observer of the natural world. She learned to paint in the wet-on-wet watercolor style at the Waldorf School at age eight, and continued her exploration until the present, maintaining a childlike freedom in her work. Alexandra has found beauty in the places she has lived and worked including the shores of the Great Lakes, New England vegetable farms and Minnesota flower gardens. Inspired by the vast diversity of plant life, she uses luminous color and pattern to create dynamic landscapes and biomorphic abstractions. Her paintings are meditations on her physical surroundings, expressions of the pure joy and wonder of watching things grow. Focusing on the ethereal aspects of nature, her forms are evocative of leaves, seeds, eggs, sprouts, wind, and waves.

Alexandra began her studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and ultimately earned a degree in painting and printmaking at Massachusetts College of Art, exploring a variety of mediums, often incorporating fabric and found objects into her work. She was part of the Minneapolis art and music community for nearly a decade before moving to northern Wisconsin. Alexandra now lives with her family in Iowa City, working out of her studio downtown. She has painted commissions for individual collectors and public spaces and has taught watercolor workshops. She has participated in numerous group and solo shows across the country. Her work was recently on display at the Iowa State Capitol in the Governor’s office.

ARTIST CONTACT

[click to email]
alexandra-ackerman.com

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