MICHAEL ADAMSON


There is no end to the number of art historical references that can be made when one surveys Michael Adamson’s rich and diverse artistic practice. He is an artist who dares to experiment with new things, and yet his work is always lined with a recognizable red thread.
 
Viewed here at Couture Galleri, Adamson’s latest body of work  -“Picturing Now and Then”-  s no exception to this rule. The artist invites us on a journey to some place detached from our current reality, though we can’t help but be filled with a sense of familiarity. As we get lost in the pigment and structured chaos of his compositions, we are free to contemplate our existence, both in the space we currently occupy and elsewhere... In Mind & Body.  
 
Michael Adamson was born in Toronto in 1971 and attended Emily Carr University, in Vancouver as well as Gasamkunsthochschule, Kassel, Germany. He is an interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto. He is the artist of a number of public, corporate and private commissions in Canada, New York and London.  He has exhibited his paintings extensively in Canada and is collected throughout North America and the United Kingdom. Museum exhibitions including his work have taken place at the Beaver Brook Art Gallery, Gardiner Museum, Peel Art Gallery and Archives, McMaster Museum and the McMichael Collection. He is represented in the United Kingdom by Thompson’s Gallery in London, Couture Galleri in Stockholm and Canadian Fines Arts in Toronto. His curatorial projects between 1998 and 2015 have present ed the works of many notable Contemporary Canadian artists.  His work has met with critical acclaim in major Canadian print publications, such as Canadian Art Magazine, Border Crossings Magazine and the Globe and Mail.
 

 

ARTIST STATEMENT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
It is my hope that by cobbling together fragments of painterly accidents, reflections on cultural chaos, and memories of historical artistic triumphs with a sense of  drifterly exploration, I could assemble a painting, or a group of paintings which could provide a portable or transferable sense of spiritual or psychic shelter.  As well as seeking a simply new painting, something fresh and magical,  I additionally seek an antidote to the diffusionary experiences of contemporary culture.
 
Perhaps we are unused to the virtual paradise afforded by our advanced civilization,  as it can be so easy to lose one’s sense of wellbeing in this highly technological age. It is not a new idea, that this rich age of modernity presents so many distractions and pressures on our attention and time that it has become somewhat normal to lose one’s essential focus to the degree where a sense of despair can enter our psyches.  It has been noted widely that we often fill those voids with ever more happiness depleting activities and ideas.
 
A sense of ecstasy fills me when I find myself deep into making a painting, when I am completely present, finding moments to actually look at what I’m doing,  watching and seeing how the colours interact with each other. Although it is like a dream; where we are all the same and the world is made of light, it creates within me a complete sense of fullness and love which strikes me as truly real.   It’s a daily thing for me, this ecstatic state, and it puts into sharp contrasts my regular experiences outside of painting, though less and less so as time goes by. 
 
A fantastic result for me would be if these paintings could provide a momentary refuge for others where gestures of hope and discovery convey a sense of purpose which in equal parts  is entertaining, enlivening and enlightening

Available works

Hallowfield, 2016, 36 x 30 inches. Oil on canvas.
Hallowfield, 2016, 36 x 30 inches. Oil on canvas.
French New World, 2016, 60 x 55 inches. Oli on canvas.
Orchard Eer, 2016, 30 x 36 inches. Oil on canvas.

Beach Chart, 2016. 48 x 36 inches. Oil on canvas.

Sold works

The French Aquamen, 2016, 60x55", Oil on canvas.

Edge's of Town's, 2016, 60 x 55 inches. Oil on canvas

Titled/Untitled, 2016, 30"x36". Oil on canvas.

Carib Fort, 2016. 60X55", Oil on canvas.

Snowice, 2016, 30 x 27 inches. Oil on canvas.
Snowice, 2016, 30 x 27 inches. Oil on canvas.

First Day of Spring, 2016, 60"x55". Oil on canvas.

Nigel's Plan, 2016, 48 x 36 inches. Oil on canvas.

Shelter, 2016, 44 x 54".  Oil on canvas.

Double Set, 2016. 36 x 36 inches. Oil on canvas.

Honor's Virtue, 2016. 60x55". Oli on canvas

Moonsun, 2016, 30 x 27 inches. Oil on canvas.
Moonsun, 2016, 30 x 27 inches. Oil on canvas.

Bell Hill, 2016, 36 x 48". Oil on canvas.