Past Exhibition

Lisa Adams

In the Land of Entropic Beauty

June 15 – July 20, 2014
Artist Reception: Sunday, June 15, 2014, 5 - 7 p.m.

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The world of Lisa Adams is set in an environ that straddles the imaginary and apocalyptic, replete with thwarted nature and human-built forms constructed from unlikely sources. Lisa Adams’ third solo exhibition at CB1 Gallery, In the Land of Entropic Beauty expands the artists’ vocabulary of imagery and of paint treatments, presenting a version of “beauty” that is conjured from an interior place, referencing the familiar so that the subjects retain a semblance of familiarity, yet are bolstered in mystery and uncertainty.

The exhibition will be on view June 15 – July 24, 2014. A reception for the artist will be held on Sunday, June 15, 2014, 5 – 7 p.m.

With an undercurrent of melancholy built upon a dichotomous palette of bright colors and black, the artist feels a palpable sense of a world going wrong in the hands of humans. In The Land of Entropic Beauty no one seems to be bothered by the decay and steady decline into obscurity. The contrast of invention and perceived reality plays in Lisa Adams’ work as she states, “I paint the world I perceive.” Thus Adams’ vision arouses tension with her viewer who is content with the status quo but is challenged by the off-putting perspective and implied impending disaster that is both subtle and palpable.

Drawing inspiration from cinema, in particular that of 70s filmmakers Werner Herzog and Andrei Tarkovsky, urban ruins, WWII bunkers, spaceships, fields of flowers and any visual motif that can be used to create a sense of dissonantly visual poetry. Slow moving and consistent, Adams likens her methodology to that of a “plodder” creeping into our consciousness without fanfare. Hers is a slow burning peculiarity that brings us to our senses.

Lisa Adams is a painter and public artist, who has a B.A. from Scripps College and an M.F.A. from the Claremont Graduate University. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and has been an artist-in-resident in Slovenia, Finland, Holland, Japan and Costa Rica. Her many accomplishments include a Fulbright Professional Scholar Award and her work is in the public collections of Eli Broad, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, the Laguna Museum of Art and the Edward Albee Foundation. In addition to her studio practice, Lisa works on public art projects, which have included the Chatsworth/Orange Line Metro Station, Fire Station No. 64 in Watts and the West Valley Branch Library in Reseda. Her first monograph book, Vicissitude of Circumstance, published by ZERO+ Publishing was released in Fall 2011.