Originally from Montreal, painter Fiona Ackerman now calls Vancouver home. She spent two years studying fine arts at Concordia University in Montreal before transferring to Emily Carr University in Vancouver, where she majored in painting and graduated with a BFA in 2002. She is now a full-time artist who creates insanely colorful, wonderfully bold, and beautifully executed paintings that have been exhibited across Canada and in Europe. She received an honorable mention for the Kingston Prize for Canadian Portraiture in 2009, and was included in Carte Blanche, Volume 2: Painting, a survey and showcase of painting in Canada.
JC—As a full-time artist, do you feel pressure to be creative all the time? How do you get through those “not so creative” days?
FA—I went through a period in 2004 when I was living in Berlin where I simply couldn’t finish anything. I actually locked myself alone in my studio for three days and forced myself to produce something—anything! That strategy didn’t work very well. I came out with one small black-and-white painting on paper and a feeling that I had gone to war with myself. In retrospect, I should have read a book or simply gone out looking, rather than forcing myself to meet some self-imposed expectation. I think it was a matter of self-confidence. When you begin to feel insecure, it can be really paralyzing. I was being so critical and hard on myself that I wasn’t leaving any room for a creative voice to be heard. Art is play. You can play with many kinds of emotions, but you can’t force play.
JC—Have you always focused on abstract painting?
FA—I’ve always done abstract and representational painting concurrently. For me, they represent two very different but complementary ways of approaching painting. My representational paintings begin with at least a rough plan, while the abstract work starts from complete spontaneity. When beginning an abstract piece, I usually lay a canvas down on the floor and start applying color intuitively. It’s really liberating, and can be a great way to play around and make new discoveries. However, with both representational and abstract pieces, the latter stages of painting are quite similar. Even the most “realistic” painting has to be treated abstractly because, at heart, all painting is largely an abstraction from reality.
JC—Which artist(s) are you most jealous of (in a good way, of course), and why?
FA—I have long been a big admirer of both David Hockney and R. B. Kitaj. They are two master composers who dance between the lines of representational painting and abstraction in very individual and creative ways. In art school, I studied Kitaj a lot, but had not looked at him again until I saw a retrospective at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. It was probably the best show I’ve seen in years.
Hockney is also a big influence and inspiration, not only as a master painter but as an artist who has never shied away from following his interests in any number of directions. He has never been afraid to reinvent himself, to produce work that is completely different from what has come before. He is uncompromising and, as a result, has never stopped producing outstanding and fresh new work. I think it is extremely important and courageous to dare to keep challenging yourself—perhaps more so in the face of success rather than failure.
JC—Would you throw a painting in the trash if it’s not working?
FA—Many lessons learned with this one. I would say the first ten years of learning to paint were filled with this situation. I usually took the die-hard approach, and just kept working for as long as it took to win the battle, or win the painting over. I’ve often looked back at a photo of a painting at a very early stage and thought, “Ah! I now know how to finish it.” But it’s too late by then because I’d already made so many changes that it had become an entirely different painting, with totally new problems. I now know that it’s not a bad idea to just let an unfinished painting sit, and come back to it when I’ve learned the lessons to solve that particular problem.
JC—Do you ever ask for constructive criticism or advice from others?
FA—In order to learn, you need a lot of guidance from someone whose opinion you respect. Ideally you find a teacher or a mentor who can guide you through the process. But there comes a point where the advice or criticism you seek out has to be taken only as a comparison to what your gut is telling you. There’s a lot to be gained from the experiences and expertise of others, but if you don’t know how to take the advice and relate it specifically to your work or path, then the advice is misunderstood and not that useful. Even positive feedback doesn’t feel good if your gut doesn’t believe it.
JC—How do you handle negative criticism, if it comes your way?
FA—There is a difference between solicited and unsolicited criticism. I’ve not really had much unsolicited negative criticism, but I’ve had a lot that I asked for. Sometimes it’s pretty uncomfortable, but if you want to learn, you need to just suck it up.
I was being so critical and hard on myself that I wasn’t leaving any room for a creative voice to be heard.
It is extremely important and courageous to dare to keep challenging yourself—perhaps more so in the face of success rather than failure.
