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From: Natasha N.
Category: Exhibitions
Date: 05 July 2004
The first thing that really struck me on first view of the works of Michael Ackerman (b.1967) was that here was an artist who has truly found his own style. In aa age where practically everything has been done & dusted, this is a real find, a jewel in the rough! As a photographer, myself, I was quite literally awestruck by the simplicity with which he has managed to capture such immediacy and, seemingly, genuine emotion in his rather dark and melancholy images. He may paint a picture of the shadow-side of human existence, but where the sensibility that comes to the surface in moments of vulnerability is touchingly revealed. His is, also, not the viewpoint of a mere observer. He has found a way inside that extremely private sphere each one of us builds around ourselves, yet there is no hint of intrusion or exploitation, only a rare quality of real intimacy. However, time is perhaps the most significant element in his personal exploration of these "everyday landscapes"; those fleeting moments which immediately are lost in the past, yet are the very material of our everyday existence. Ackerman, himself, describes an almost obsessive need to photograph; to realise these images as "proofs of one's own feelings" in response to the world around us. Yet, not in the detached manner of reportage or documentary photography, recording life from aside, but fully immersed in it, as a feeling/breathing fibre of the texture itself. His images are capable of evoking a feeling for the universal quality we all possess within our most basic make-up. These strangers seem almost as ghosts, yet possess a presence of character that stays with you. And as I walked down the streets of Rome that night I was suddenly more aware of the presence of those around me and how we were all "interweaving" in some piece of a strange, rich fabric... Maybe Ackerman has no other 'purpose' for his work than to respond to a personal need, but if an artist can influence us by something they have been inspired by, surely this in itself is an additional achievement, even be it on an unconscious level?
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