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| Yura Adams speaks in front of her 12-part installation Fast Earth Wall at LGAP |
I first became aware of Yura Adams' paintings when I saw them on the final day of a solo exhibition at John Davis Gallery in Hudson last year. So, naturally, I was excited recently to learn she would be showing at another favorite venue, the Lake George Arts Project's
Courthouse Gallery in Lake George Village, this spring.
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| Cold Morning Foggy Glow 2018, oil on canvas |
The show, entitled
Fast Earth, features some of the best work from the John Davis exhibition, as well as a good portion of very different new work created in handmade paper and mixed media. The contrast is striking, both in style and content, as Adams has chosen in the new work to confront our global climate change crisis by constructing a storyboard of free-form pieces on one large wall of the gallery. The 12-part installation requires decoding, handily provided on a printed sheet, and nicely written in a terse almost poetic style. Adams describes the piece as a "speculation on the redesign of earth by climate change" and as "a transition of meaning." This challenging and complex effort is unusual in abstract art, and incorporates a range of materials including vinyl, inkjet printing, and acrylic.
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| Twilight Flourish 2018, oil on canvas |
Meanwhile, on the other side of the gallery, three of the earlier paintings shimmer brilliantly (two are shown here). Though they read as abstract, they are inspired by and aim to depict rare and specific effects of light. Here, Adams indulges in her love of science, from which she has learned the causes of the visual phenomena she has observed and attempted to recapture in paint: crystals in the atmosphere or on the ground.
The results are not just interesting as strong color compositions; they are also worthy of greater attention, as they reveal unknown truths about the world we think we see, but don't really understand.
The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday afternoons; the show continues through June 14.
David. This post is yet another reminder of why you have such an effective blog format. The black is the perfect background for these paintings. Thanks for sharing and keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteJohn - You are too kind! I learned from looking at paintings by Matisse how black sets off colors. He remains a most-favorite artist for that and many other reasons.
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