Rita Ackermann at Andrea Rosen

It has been over a decade since Rita Ackermann left behind the laptop- and syringe-toting nymphets of her earliest canvases. Subsequently, she made intricate ballpoint pen drawings of monsters and paintings based on family snapshots. In this show of 14 recent paintings--the exhibition was titled "Listen to the Fool's Reproach," after a line from William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell--Ackermann seems to have turned to European Romantic sources, to which she gives her own twist.

The new paintings, which seem to draw equally on fairy tales and 19th-century Decadent painters and illustrators, use dark palettes. Ackermann alternates between flat, measured brushstrokes and impasto, the different types of paint handling often mingling in a single canvas. The pictures are small, which makes their subjects appear hermetic, as if afraid of being touched by too much light.

Two longhaired women--one blonde, the other brunette--appear in both The Book Burners and The Closing. In the former, the two are intoxicated, one woman collapsed and the other in a trance. A large empty bottle lies on the table between them. The paint handling is smooth and calculated. In The Closing, things have gotten stranger for the pair. The blonde still seems intoxicated, while the brunette is awake and wearing a large, transparent mask that gives her a double set of features. The women are naked. They hold between them a sword, which has drawn blood from both. The Book Burners II shows the pair at the table, as before, only now the blonde is awake and shirtless, brandishing a severed male head while holding a long blade in her left hand.

Some paintings in the exhibition, such as these, depend on an air of violence. Others appear to depict mythical landscapes in which unexpected events may occur. In Dynasty, a carefree, sexy nymph cavorts on a path in a dramatic, mountainous setting. Wolf with Cane shows the anthropomorphic title figure resting near a tree. The curving forms of a bridge and hills have a marvelous resonance, and the relationship of the figure to the landscape demonstrates the artist's confidence with classical formats. Also impressive is Ackermann's willingness to explore new subject matter, and what seems to be a personal investment in her grim themes.

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group