Richard Ackoon
Contact: rich_ackoon@yahoo.com
Homepage: http://www.richardackoon.com
Artist Statement and Biography
As a boy, I drew cartoons and imagined land and seascapes. As a youth in high school, I was drawn towards popular culture and fashion illustration; recreating designs and photographs found on record album covers and within the pages of entertainment and fashion magazines. I was completely drawn to the abundance of imagery presented within the pages of magazines and I still relish the act of editing those pages with a pair of scissors. To tear apart magazines, to crop and edit the images that appeal to me still informs my art today. Some of those cropped images are currently pasted on the pages of a series of 18” x 11” journals, as free-floating elements or composed, potential compositions for paintings.
My uncle, Patrick Chu Foon, was an accomplished painter and sculptor in Trinidad and Tobago. As a child and adolescent, I was exposed to the world of art through his amazing talent and inspiration. He has been a major influence both spiritually and artistically. Trinidad Carnival has greatly influenced my love of art, creativity and colour.
Through my paintings I aspire to create a new language; a window through which the viewer can receive new visual and mental joy and stimulation. I wish to absorb the viewer. To make them feel, enjoy and explore.
The primary subjects of my paintings have been figurative and an exploration of popular, iconographic imagery. My most recent body of paintings is more of an abstract nature with subtle references and clues to representational subject matter. The source material for these paintings are collages comprised of inch squared magazine cut-outs placed next to each other in a grid-like pattern; reminiscent of a patchwork with an appearance of pixels. With these works I feel at ease to experiment with single planes of colour, expressive brushwork and my fondness for the act of mark making.
1984 Queen’s Royal College, Port of Spain, Trinidad, Graduate
1987 International Fine Arts College, Miami, FL, AA
1999 School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, BFA
2001 Spoke the Hub Brooklyn, NY, Solo Exhibition
2002 GAB @ OHM New York, NY, Group Exhibition
2003 Leslie-Lohman Gallery, New York, NY, Group Exhibition
2003 Fatty’s Astoria, NY, Solo Exhibition
2004 Adjustments, New York, NY, Solo Exhibition
2005 Fillmore, Brooklyn, NY, Solo Exhibition
2007 A-Forest Gallery, New York, NY, Group Exhibition
2007 Cafe Sutra, Brooklyn, NY, Solo Exhibition
2008 Schillerpalais Gallery, Berlin, Germany, Group Exhibition
2008 A-Forest Gallery, New York, NY Group Exhibition
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Section #1 2008
Mixed Media
12” x 12”
Automatic 2008
Mixed Media
12” x 12”
Dad at 19 2007
Oil on canvas
40” x 30”
Wanderlust 2007
Oil on canvas
24” x 36”
2007
Landscape 1998
Oil on canvas
53” x 71”
Self Portrait 1994
Oil on canvas
40” x 30”
to the top
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