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Lot Essay
A sensual combination of gouache and pastel, Garden tender by Rebecca Ackroyd is purposefully cropped to create something surreal between object and human. Towering at six feet tall, the painting exceeds human scale in order to render the body strange and beautiful. The deckled edges give it the air of an ancient tapestry, yet its subject matter is distinctly contemporary. Somewhere between the sincere and the expressionistic, Ackroyd’s paintings and drawings evoke the wonderfully uneasy moments of human experience. In her review of Ackroyd’s 2021 exhibition 100mph at Peres Projects, Berlin, critic Louisa Elderton recalls, “’100mph’ asked us to speed ahead, stay fluid, flow through, wonder what else bodies could look like, and accept the joy inherent in such indefinable shapes” (L. Elderton, “Rebecca Ackroyd: Peres Projects,” Artforum, May 2021, https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/202105/rebecca-ackroyd-85516).
Ackroyd reveals an enigmatic scene to us: a red-headed person is bound by studded belts, and their hair is interwoven throughout like the winding sculptures of Eva Hesse. Interestingly, Ackroyd’s signature is emblazoned on one of the belts, suggesting perhaps that she is the one who has been pleasurably bound. With these layers of flesh, leather, and hair, Garden tender has a sculptural quality; it is no surprise that Ackroyd began in that medium before transitioning to her tactile drawings and paintings. She says, “I came from making only sculpture to making these small drawings between bodies of work. And then, gradually, the drawings became the pastels, and now they’re as important. I don’t really see a distinction between the processes now” (R. Ackroyd, quoted in E. Brown, “From fragmented memories to ordinary encounters: Locating the subconscious in the work of Rebecca Ackroyd,” NR Magazine, Autumn/Winter 2022, https://nr.world/in-our-world-rebecca-ackroyd/).
Ackroyd has garnered widespread praise for her work since her first solo show in 2013. She was included in Dark Light, Realism in the Age of Post-Truths: Selections from the Tony and Elham Salamé Collection, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, at the Aïshti Foundation, Beirut (2023), as well as the 15th Lyon Biennale, France (2019). Her work is held in prestigious private and public collections, including the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, the Zabludowicz Collection, London, and the Bunker Art Collection, Palm Beach. In addition to these professional accolades, Ackroyd has become an inspiration to young women artists. In another glowing review of 100mph, writer Chloe Stead observes, “Ackroyd seems to suggest that it is the shapeshifting potential of femininity itself that can be wielded like a sword” (C. Stead, “Rebecca Ackroyd Takes Femininity to the Battlefield,” Frieze, February 18, 2021, https://www.frieze.com/article/rebecca-ackroyd-100mph-2021-review). Ackroyd takes this sword and combines it with tenderness and eroticism. Garden tender is exemplary in this regard; the bulges of the subject’s skin create a loving map. Whether it is a self-portrait or a fictional being, Garden tender is, perhaps paradoxically, a moment of liberation.
Ackroyd reveals an enigmatic scene to us: a red-headed person is bound by studded belts, and their hair is interwoven throughout like the winding sculptures of Eva Hesse. Interestingly, Ackroyd’s signature is emblazoned on one of the belts, suggesting perhaps that she is the one who has been pleasurably bound. With these layers of flesh, leather, and hair, Garden tender has a sculptural quality; it is no surprise that Ackroyd began in that medium before transitioning to her tactile drawings and paintings. She says, “I came from making only sculpture to making these small drawings between bodies of work. And then, gradually, the drawings became the pastels, and now they’re as important. I don’t really see a distinction between the processes now” (R. Ackroyd, quoted in E. Brown, “From fragmented memories to ordinary encounters: Locating the subconscious in the work of Rebecca Ackroyd,” NR Magazine, Autumn/Winter 2022, https://nr.world/in-our-world-rebecca-ackroyd/).
Ackroyd has garnered widespread praise for her work since her first solo show in 2013. She was included in Dark Light, Realism in the Age of Post-Truths: Selections from the Tony and Elham Salamé Collection, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, at the Aïshti Foundation, Beirut (2023), as well as the 15th Lyon Biennale, France (2019). Her work is held in prestigious private and public collections, including the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, the Zabludowicz Collection, London, and the Bunker Art Collection, Palm Beach. In addition to these professional accolades, Ackroyd has become an inspiration to young women artists. In another glowing review of 100mph, writer Chloe Stead observes, “Ackroyd seems to suggest that it is the shapeshifting potential of femininity itself that can be wielded like a sword” (C. Stead, “Rebecca Ackroyd Takes Femininity to the Battlefield,” Frieze, February 18, 2021, https://www.frieze.com/article/rebecca-ackroyd-100mph-2021-review). Ackroyd takes this sword and combines it with tenderness and eroticism. Garden tender is exemplary in this regard; the bulges of the subject’s skin create a loving map. Whether it is a self-portrait or a fictional being, Garden tender is, perhaps paradoxically, a moment of liberation.