First Friday Art Walk featured artist Anthony Ackrill

Anthony Ackrill was born in Alaska in 1958. He received his formal art training at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy from 1995-2000. The curriculum offered an academic approach to painting and drawing based largely on the principles of art as taught in the painting academies of Europe in the 19th century, meaning a strict adherence to observing nature and painting directly from life while focusing on the human figure. Ackrill became an instructor at the academy, teaching anatomy, figure painting and drawing before returning to Florida, USA.

Since leaving Italy, Ackrill has lived and worked in Gainesville, Florida, producing the paintings currently presented and selling them primarily through galleries and exhibitions in America and Europe. All of the pictures were created with a traditional approach to the craft of painting, in that they were all painted from life, with careful observations of nature and requiring a live model to pose in the studio. These pictures consistently reveal what inspires the artist most — light, nature, water and humans.

Ackrill’s more dramatic works are large scale narratives and painted with oil on linen. The artist often uses earth tones but will occasionally choose to expand his palette. Widely collected, Ackrill has exhibited in solo and group shows in the USA as well as Europe. His work is currently available from Fine Arts galleries in Scottsdale, AZ, Charleston, NC, Cincinnati, OH, Sag Harbor, New York, and Chattanooga, Tennessee.