Sandra Ackermann
(Germany, b.1974)

Sandra Ackermann lives and works in rural Germany and London UK. She studied fine art at Staatliche Hochschule for Bildende Künste – Städelschule Frankfurt am Main. In her work she combines the interest in the human appearance with the observation of the newly appearing digital image culture and the way it changes the perception we have about ourselves. Ackermann understands her work as an ongoing project of cultural observational studies from a female perspective, interlacing political and emotional movements of society into poetic paintings. Her work has been shown internationally in Europe and Asia in Galleries and Museums, including Royal Opera Arcade, Städel Museumm, Städtisches Museum Engen, etc. Her work is present in private and public collections, including art collection of Rhineland Palatinate, Germany.

The paintings always have a female figure at their centre, with the skin painted in an early renaissance manner giving them a highly vivid presence. These women are escorted by often several layers of imagery. Ackermann uses clothes and backgrounds of her models, basically anything that is not the human skin, to create an image within an image, guiding the observer’s attention to the perception of ambivalence of reality and truth. Ackermann understands her work as an ongoing project of cultural observational studies from a female perspective, interlacing political and emotional movements of society into poetic paintings.

“... Sandra Ackermann’s paintings are created in such a way that they withstand the tension between pain and poetry.
The contradictions are not resolved, because they are what enables the figures to live. Ackermann’s paintings are profoundly ambivalent. They are beautiful and ugly, timeless and mundane, tender-delicate-inexorably. Her paintings are cold and yet full internally flowing music. They dream on the hard floor of reality.”
- Dr. Felten Wagner, Head of Municipal Museum of Engen.


Selected Exhibitions

2022 Selection Part 2, Galerie Voss, Dusseldorf, Germany (G)
2021 Catford Arts Trail, London, UK (G)
2020 Escapate a tu Realidad, Gallery Reiners Contemporary Art, Marbella, Spain (E)
2019 Escape into your Reality, Galerie Voss, Dusseldorf, Germany, (S)
2018 Passion For Freedom, Royal Opera Arcade, London, UK (G), (C)
2018 Catford Arts Trail, London, UK (G)
2018 Floating, Städtisches Museum Engen, Germany, (S), (C)
2018 Sandra Ackermann – Solo Show, Art Wanson Gallery, Marbella, Spain, (S)
2018 Catford Arts exhibition, Beckenham Place Park Mansion, London, Great Britain, (G)
2017 Sie – Evas Erbinnen, Schloss Beneath, Duesseldorf, Germany, (S)
2017 Lost in Nothingness, Galerie Voss, Germany, (S)
2016 Faces and Spaces, Galerie Filser und Gräf, München, Germany, (G)
2015 Wasteland, Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, Germany (S) (C)
2013 Die Leinwand des Leibes, Kunstverein Walkmühle, Wiesbaden, Germany (G), (C)
2013 Running to stand still, Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, Germany (S)
2012 Face-toFace, Neue Galerie, Gladbeck, Germany (G)
2012 OH, Art Hub Gallery, London, Great Britain (G)
2011 Passion for Freedom, Unit24 Gallery, London, Great Britain (G)
2011 I-SHO, The Gallery, London, Great Britain (G), (C)
2011 In the Current Climate, Core Gallery, London, Great Britain (G)
2011 Concretum, Dilston Grove, London, Great Britain (G)
2010 I look inside you, Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, Germany (S)
2009 Gemeinsam in Bewegung, Contemporary Art from Germany and China,
Goethe Institut, Wuhan, China, (G), (C)
2009 Heidi au pays de Martin Kippenberger, FRAC Aquitaine et Bordeaux,
Carré Bonnat, Bayonne, France (G)
2009 Bildschön, Städtische Galerie, Karlsruhe, Germany (G)
2009 Skinscapes, Marburger Kunstverein, Marburg, Germany (G), (C)
2009 Die Wirklichkeit ist nicht die Wahrheit, Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, Germany (S), (C)
2008 3. Bejing Biennale, Bejing, China, (G), (C)
2008 Hotel Marienbad 002, KW, Berlin, Germany (G)
2007 Annual Open, Cafe Gallery, London, Great Britain (G)
2007 It takes Something to make Something, Portikus, Frankfurt a.M., Germany (G)
2007 Point Blank, Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, Germany (S)
2006 Pour voir.., Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France (S)
2006 Lent me your ear, Kunstverein Bad-Salzdetfurth, Bodenburg, Germany (G), (C)
2006 Sandra Ackermann, Studio, Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany (S), (C)
2006 Hautton, Galerie Caprice Horn, Berlin, Germany (S)
2005 Tendenzen 2005, Darmstädter Sezession, Darmstadt, Germany (G), (C)
2005 Junge Rheinland-Pfälzer Künstlerinnen und Künstler,
Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Germany (G), (C)
2004 Charlotte Prinz zu Ehren, Kunst Archiv, Darmstadt, Germany (G)
2003 Absolvenz, Städel Museum, Frankfurt a.M., Germany (G), (C)
2002 Anblicke, Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, Germany (S)
2002 Maria ohne Kind, Don´t miss, Frankfurt a.M., Germany (S)
2001 Oberflächen, Ausstellungshalle Schulstr 1A, Frankfurt a.M., Germany (S)
2001 VASISTDAS, 7. Ulusalararasi Istanbul Bienal, Istanbul, Turky (G)
1998 Stuttgart, 17.7.1956-Salem (Wis.)/ USA 3.3. 1977, Portikus,
Frankfurt a. M.,Germany(G), (C)

Honours and Awards

2004-2006 Scholarship Charlotte Prinz Stiftung, Darmstadt, Germany
2005 Dr Rolf Seisser Price for joung Artists, Lions Club, Frankfurt a.M., Germany
2006 Scholarship Cité des Arts, Paris, France
2011 Passion for Freedom Award, London, Great Britain

Monographs

Sandra Ackermann 2001-2005 (2006)
Sandra Ackermann 2005-2008 Reality is not the Truth (2008)
Sandra Ackermann 2009-2014 (2015)
Sandra Ackermann Floating (2018)

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