Michael Acker

Lives and works in Boyes Hot Springs, CA, USA

Artist statement

I construct my own version of reality in my work, combining and recombining images of my environment; sometimes “beautiful” images, sometimes the most mundane. To make a work of art, for me, is like a puzzle that I am simultaneously constructing and solving. I get this absurd sense of satisfaction when I finish a Sudoku or crossword puzzle. Puzzles are really pointless, aren’t they? But the point is the doing and the satisfaction. I also get a sense of satisfaction when I finish an artwork. Similarly absurd. The point is the doing, the seeing what happens. The point for the viewer, I hope, is seeing what, in fact, did happened. I hope you engage with the puzzle, trying to discover some of the possible solutions. I hope you engage with my interpretations of what we all see. I hope you are able to unravel the inherent mysteries of the newly created reality embodied in each work. My work is based on photographs of my immediate environment that I compose, using Photoshop, into hybrid views from many angles. Then I print out onto watercolor paper, and other papers, and collage in the real world. Next I paint over them and reprint and re-collage so the surface becomes very rich. I always maintain the original composition, but the layer on layer effect I achieve becomes really interesting to look at. You can get kind of lost in the surface, and then your eye pulls back to the overall image. That is the oscillation I’m going for.

Artwork