Rita Ackermann

Rita Ackermann (b. 1968) is a Hungarian-born artist whose work moves between figuration and abstraction with a raw, improvisational energy. After studying in Budapest, she relocated to New York’s Lower East Side in 1992 training at The New York Studio School, where early drawings of rebellious youths and paintings with bold contours and translucent figures quickly placed her within the city’s cultural zeitgeist. Influenced by punk, cinema, and the legacy of Abstract Expressionism, she layered gestural marks over intimate imagery. Today her practice, spanning painting, drawing, and collaborative silkscreens, embraces innovation and disruption. Images surface and dissolve, mixing beauty with violence, and reflecting a world in tension, where chaos becomes a creative force.

Ackermann’s works have been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, including those at MASI Lugano in Switzerland (2023), Malmö Konsthall in Sweden (2016), and the Swiss Institute Contemporary Art in New York (2010) as well as group exhibitions at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Connecticut (2013), The New Museum (2011), and the Museum of Modern Art (2011). Ackermann was also the subject of a retrospective at Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami in 2012 and participated in the 2008 Whitney Biennial.