Amanda Acker
Amanda Acker (b.1982) is a painter based in Onekama, Michigan. She is primarily self taught with the help and encouragement of various teachers and mentors, inter library loan books, internet research, and the observation and generosity of other artists and thinkers, both living and dead, along the way.
Acker's paintings explore what it is to be a human in relationship with one’s immediate surroundings. Working from personal photographs, memory, and life, Acker’s work feels both intimate and relatable. The lack of hierarchy between object, plant, animal, human, and landscape honors all as interconnected and deserving attention. Through the time given to building up a painting, her work invites the viewer to look closer at what might have otherwise been thought ordinary.
Amanda Acker, Clothesline View, 2023, oil on muslin covered panel, 12 x 9 inches
Artist Statement
I choose to make paintings because it is the way I acknowledge, process, learn, and move around the place where I live. I often catch a scene I’d like to paint out of the corner of my eye while going about the business and busyness of life. On the way to the grocery store, windows down, grabbing pansies at the nursery, or I'd glance out the kitchen door while making dinner, or I'd be walking back from the post office, running late, to find a long shadow on the old schoolhouse. That particular calendula. The way a painting of the summer porch is reflected in a round mirror. See it, like, paint it.
The ‘paint it’ part slows everything down, which I am so desperate to do. Maybe that is why I paint, to slow it all down, get my bearings, and move forward. During the actual making of the painting the subject begins to disappear and becomes a place to solve problems and a launchpad to explore the material, mind spaces, and how my physical body feels and moves.
I like to come to a painting with an open mind. The best paintings emerge when the route is unclear, and I have to rely on instinct, learned knowledge, mistakes, and practice to find my way. As I'm finishing the work, the subject and all the reasons I love it reappear, and if I am successful, the painting wiggles and vibrates, like life.
At Tusen Takk
For her residency, Amanda plans on immersing herself into painting scenes of Tusen Takk and the surrounding landscape. Typically working in her home studio using personal photographs as reference, at Tusen Takk she’ll look to challenge herself and her practice by painting directly from life. The idea is to engage more directly and in a more immediate way with her surrounding environment.
While observation has always been central to Amanda’s painting practice, she’ll look to deepen her understanding of what observation can entail. She is curious to explore what will happen in her decision making process and her use of material if the compositional control and comfort of photo reference is taken away. Many of Amanda’s current paintings reference quick glances of everyday life, a moment in time captured. At Tusen Takk she’ll explore the effect a long gaze can have on a painting.
Amanda Acker, Strawberry Season, 2023, oil on muslin covered panel, 10 x 10 inches
Amanda Acker, Frances Swan, 2022, oil on canvas. 60 x 48 inches
