Bill Adams is a New York-based artist whose work has been featured in prominent solo and group exhibitions both domestically and internationally. Most recently, Adams held solo exhibitions at Shrine Gallery in New York and Jupiterin Miami. His work was also recently selected for the prestigious Bunker Annual in Palm Beach, Florida.
A mainstay of the New York art scene, Adams has a long-standing exhibition history that includes five solo shows at Kerry Schuss Gallery. His work was featured in the White Columns Annual and has been included in exhibitions at noted institutions and galleries such as the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Gorney Bravin Lee, Fredericks & Freiser, and Jeff Bailey Gallery.
Beyond New York, Adams has exhibited extensively in solo shows throughout Germany and across upstate New York. His diverse practice continues to engage with themes of absurdity, emotion, and political commentary through a range of media.
MEPAINTSME: Can you give me some background leading up to when you arrived in New York?
BILL ADAMS: I have lived and worked in New York for the better part of my life. However, I left New York following high school in 1976 and drove to California, where I enrolled in the Claremont Colleges for four years.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts, I drove to Maine, where I spent the summer at the Skowhegan residency—an amazing experience. When the summer ended, I drove back to New York and took a year off before attending Indiana University. I earned a Master of Fine Arts, and then it was back to New York, where I secured a job and a studio, and where I still live and work today.
MPM: You’ve worked across media that diverge widely in style and technique. What determines when an idea demands a particular material or form rather than another?
BA: Each project I choose to undertake is a response to a particular “something” in my life, in the world, or in the culture. For example, the ballpoint pen drawings are a direct result of 9/11. That day—less than a mile from the Twin Towers with the air deadly—we left. My wife and I threw some clothes in a bag; I grabbed a pad of paper and a pen, and we evacuated our apartment (which was permeated with the rank smells of burning wires and human remains). A nightmare.
The ballpoints became a simple, direct way to reassemble my ideology and search out an image of raw emotion. Most often, the images are of animals—sometimes a cat or a dog, sometimes an unidentifiable beast.
MPM: Your ongoing series of Bichons is so interesting. What is it about these creatures that has kept you so engaged?
BA: These stunned animals are a stand-in for me.
MPM: There’s an underlying through-line of political commentary in your images
BA: The “Capitol paintings,” were born on January 6 after a confused phone call to my mother. It was her birthday and she was ill; her mind, already diminished, seemed unable to even contemplate what had happened. She died about a year later—bereft of mind, body, and country. I think I have made nearly twenty Capitol paintings. I wanted them to be big and messy. These were the centerpieces of both my shows at Shrine Gallery and Jupiter several years ago.
MPM: Your ceramic ducks came about during the run-up to the first Trump presidency. How do you arrive at particular animals or creatures to carry these kinds of ideas?
BA: They are an army. They are vessels containing the forces in my mind which generate clarity. Often the simplest things are wonders—like a duck. (Clay seemed right for this project, for it’s sensual and of the earth.) Each new one is a pledge to nature, art, beauty, and inner strength—forces in my mind which can prevail in the face of fascism.
My thought after the Capitol paintings was “don’t lose the bark,” so I’m making a group of small paintings of my family and dog, culled from my imagination. This is what I’m painting now. Everything I make is a continuous, ongoing series. And everything I make is off-kilter and possibly funny—and surely absurd.
MPM: As an artist, do you feel humor and/or absurdity is a potent tool in confronting power?
BA: Obviously, humor is the enemy of the regime, purposely squelched. Dangerously absurd and shrewdly uninformed, any criticism or truth is a distraction. Wasting humans and environmental suicide are the norm. But we go on. Artists keep making; this in itself is a boon. Perhaps even a moral imperative.
MPM: How do you find or generate the motivation to begin working in the studio, even on days when it doesn’t come naturally?
BA: Ideas never run short, but I am susceptible to the occasional slump. Reading is my way out, nature is my way out—the eyes of an innocent creature, the beauty of a snowfall, a summer breeze.
Also, for me, it’s important to show up every day to my studio so that, at the very least, I can take stock. The occasional visit or call from a dear friend is always uplifting, too.
MPM: Thanks so much for talking. I’ve really come to love your work and it was a blast learning more about your practice.
BA: Thank you for taking the interest. It’s flattering and motivating and altogether lovely.
What a great interview!!! No jive all heart. Oh yes the absurdity of the intrepid ducks. ❤️