Ackermann’s approach of layering and visible complexity makes the works ultimately unknowable, eluding any efforts to be read as stories. The radical indeterminacy of the works is what makes them living, breathing entities separate from the artist’s hand. Ackermann says of her works: ‘As soon as an image becomes clear or readable, in the very same moment it loses its own meaning in another form. The painting keeps everything well hidden, cloaked in great secrecy. The painting contains of multitude of transparent line figures and forms. This multitude should evoke simplicity and sincerity rather than any sort of sophistication. The picture must fall a thousand times but each time it picks itself up again to fulfill its mission to serve the unknowable, unnamable, anew. When a painting begins it must constantly begin anew, as though there was never a predecessor. Each painting has to start from the lowest level to build itself up no matter what level its predecessor accomplished. Sophistication is unnecessary. Painting doesn’t require complicated thinking, but sincerity.
