Winsor Gallery: Heterotopia - New Works by Fiona Ackerman

Dates and Venue 1 March - 1 April 2012 | Winsor Gallery 3025 Granville Street, Vancouver

Reviewer Karen Fitzgibbon

 


The Winsor Gallery again presents new refreshing works and this time it’s the works of Fiona Ackerman who hails from Montreal.

Ackerman works with acrylics and spray paints on Canvas. Her style would be considered expressionism. There is a light airy feel to her works that sends the onlooker into an uplifting mental state.

I had to ask her what were the thoughts behind her popular piece New York - 42 X 38 in. oil & ink on canvas, which had a container of paint brushes, a squeezed tube of paint and of course that fly that seems to find itself a spot on many of her canvases. The paintbrushes show her detail capabilities and the fly her sense of humor. Ackerman had portrayed her friend from Montreal on this canvas through objects of art materials that is so much a part of who her artist friend really is. It would be interesting for all of us to know just what objects our friends see us as. Oooooo! Well, maybe not for some of us.

Ackerman puts a great deal of work out there even though she has a toddler at home. “From my morning hours until noon”, she says is when she creates most of her work. She is young and has a bright aura that transcends itself to her canvases. One of her paintings is approximately 108” x 108” but its lightness allows you to breathe when you stand beside it unlike some art that is so bold in color that it is overpowering in both size and color. Two paintings side by side on smaller canvases have one man right side up and the other upside down. I will leave these to your imagination and that of the artist.

With so much heaviness in our world these days it is a pleasure to be transported on a cloud by Ackerman. I would say Ackerman’s art is thought provoking and it is fun to try to figure out just what is going on but then again maybe not. The Winsor has stated in its brochure that the exhibit shows a blurred fine line in what we believe and what we know. Let’s just accept it for what it is. I just appreciate its impact on my senses.

© 2012 Karen Fitzgibbon