Marina Adams

Marina Adams has developed a dynamic and abstract painterly practice of clear and powerful formal language that centers around exploring the possibilities of form and movement while displaying the structural power of color. 

 

Her vibrant works create space and motion by assembling organic, asymmetrical shapes into free-flowing, rhythmic patterns. As the curator Helga Christoffersen put it, Adams’ “work demands silence, enabling us to think and dream and create space”, while embracing gesturalism and improvisation. She reduces the work down to its essentials, allowing space for all the senses. Rather than a purely optical matter, the artist understands painting as the manifestation of intangibles such as temperament, sensibility, intellect, and research. 

 

Adam's work draws inspiration from the natural world, music, textiles, architecture, and literature–Thelonious Monk, Moroccan rugs, Moorish mosaics, and the poet Joanne Kyger–while also engaging in a persistent dialogue with art historical predecessors, such as Henri Matisse, Joan Mitchell, Alma Thomas, Willem de Kooning, and Hilma af Klint.