Rita Ackermann @ Hauser & Wirth, Somerset

Turning Air Blue is an exhibition of new works by Hungarian born, New York-based artist Rita Ackermann.
It extends through two galleries and doubles as an organic continuation of Somerset’s rural setting. The Rhoades gallery features a body of work titled ‘The Coronation and Massacre of Love’ that are large-scale compositions on canvas primed with chalkboard paint, on which washes of white chalk and green and blue pigments have been applied. These Abstract Expressionist-like works are reminiscent of actual chalkboards in a classroom, covered with unintentional erasures and marks, yet they have been conceptually executed by multiple deletions of figurative drawings and landscapes. By way of these gestures, the revenant outline of the erased drawings often emerges into the foreground. The final picture is a record of these movements.
The exhibition continues into the Bourgeois gallery, which comprises two bodies of work: ‘Turning Air Blue and Nudes’. The paintings titled Turning Air Blue are large-scale pigment paintings on canvas where translucent figures suggest a feminine shape.