Spotlight Artist

Nick Ackerman

Northeast
Artist profile photo

In Person and Scanned

Geometric abstract artwork with red, gray, yellow, and blue sections.

acrylic on canvas on wood panel

Field Detail

Geometric pattern with orange to red gradients over a black and white abstract background.

acrylic on canvas on wood panel

Different Scales

Abstract gray texture on left, green panel with central zigzag shape on right.

acrylic on canvas on wood panel

Featured in New American Paintings1 / 3

Artist Statement

 My work bounces back and forth between abstract and representational imagery. The source of this imagery is my musings on quantum fields and how they may look in the most basic of terms, the simplest, most rudimentary documentation of quantum elds. If a pinhole camera could capture particles vibrating on a quantum eld at a fundamental level, I am hoping this is how they would look.

Faux marbling and fabric paint techniques stand in for cliche metaphors of the fabric of space/time. Clunky, tube-like lines are particles traveling atop the elds. Interference waves are created by spraying particles of paint onto ‘fields’ of canvas that have been manipulated to capture the particles and transform them into waves.

Formalist concerns, though, are always present; bringing as much clarity as possi-ble to the painting drives the finishing of the piece itself.

Discover more artists from the Northeast

THE MAGAZINE

Explore our magazine to discover exceptional artists

Open magazine with text, modern illustrations, and a list of artists on a pink background.
View issues

Call for Artists

Submit your work for consideration

New American Paintings is a juried exhibition-in-print and digital, presenting the work of 40 emerging artists in each issue.

View competitions

Your gateway to new art

Discover tomorrow's art stars, today

Two books on a wooden table with a modern decorative sculpture in the background.

PRINT + EARLY ACCESS DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION

$179/YEAR

DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION

$99/YEAR OR $10/MONTH

Each issue of New American Paintings features forty artists selected through our juried competitions—presented in a beautifully curated, full-color publication. Subscribers receive six issues per year, plus exclusive online access to current and past editions. Are you a collector? Consider our premium subscription and receive our museum-quality printed publication + access to each new digital issue two weeks before its general release.