NYAB Event - Marina Adams "Coming Thru Strange"

Marina Adams "Coming Thru Strange"

Hionas Gallery LES

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Hionas Gallery presents Coming Thru Strange, the latest solo exhibition from Marina Adams. This collection of new paintings, created between 2010 and 2013, expands upon Adams’ visual investigations that pull the imagination across surprising juxtapositions of color and line, as if encountering a boundary-less intersection. While some works draw the eye beyond the edges of the artist’s vivid canvases, viewers will never travel too far from each work’s carefully orchestrated foci.

“The subject of the work is the process of painting,” Willem de Kooning once remarked, and the painterly touches on hand in Adams’ latest abstractions present striking subjects indeed. Like gazing upon a seascape, observing the rhythms of one’s heart, or admiring the subtle yet pure abstractions of Agnes Martin (also one of her painting’s namesakes), Adams’ eye moves with nature, and she graciously allows the motions that dictate it to inform her paintings from start to finish.

In Coming Thru Strange (2011), Adams composes a series of unusual meetings of color and contour, all joined by effortless lines that behave like jagged veins, continually bringing life to every inch of the painting. The work stands out in many ways among the new collection, relying more on the artist’s process and instinct than continuity of shape.

Hers is an optimistic investigation of what color and line can do for nature, and for how it can move the viewer’s eyes yet keep their owner present, inhabiting a “space for thought,” as she puts it. “I like for people to go many places,” says Adams, “because I have gone many places.” Students of palette and form may find themselves unexpectedly visiting the likes of Joan Mitchell and Alma Thomas, or even the portraits of Matisse or ukiyo-e woodprints.

Marina Adams lives and works in New York City and Parma, Italy. She received her MFA in painting from Columbia University’s School of the Arts and a BFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Selected solo exhibitions include Marina Adams at CUE Art Foundation, NYC (2008), and The Nature of Line at Magazzino d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy (1997). Her paintings and drawings have been included in numerous group shows, including Wit at The Painting Center, NYC; Color Walks Away: Marina Adams, Howard Hodgkin, Suzanne McClelland at Galerie Andres Thalmann, Zurich; Winter Break at Momenta Art, NYC; Draw the Line at Allegra LaViola Gallery, NYC; Mimosa at Sala Uno Galleria, Rome; and Americani a Roma, Arte Architectura Moderna, Rome. She has exhibited at many of New York City’s key non-profit art spaces such as Art in General, Exit Art, and Roebling Hall. In addition, Adams’ frequent collaborations with poets has resulted in books and limited editions that include Taormina with Vincent Katz (Kayrock, 2012), The Tango with Leslie Scalapino (Granary Books, 2001), Vue sur Mer with Christian Prigent (Gervais Jassaud, 2010), In Our Own Backyard (Tolling Elves, 2006) and New Alphabet (BOMB Magazine, Winter, 2010) with Norma Cole. In 2007, she co-organized the exhibition Sex in the City at D.U.M.B.O. Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY, with curator Dean Daderko. Adams is a Visiting Critic of Art at Rhode Island School of Design, and has taught at BMCC/CUNY, Middlebury College, Rutgers University, and the Pratt Institute.

[Image: Marina Adams "Coming Thru Strange" (2011) Acrylic on Linen 74 x 74 in.]