Erika Adams

January 6–February 14, 2014

Vernissage January 9, 5 à 7

(york corridor vitrines)

En français

A message from Erika Adams:
Please join me in conversation about art, language or anything else

Tuesdays 12:30 – 1:30pm
Wednesdays 3:00 – 4:30pm
Beginning Wednesday, January 22

In the context of her exhibition, She said I have a French face, artist Erika Adams invites any and all to join her in conversation, in an effort to further explore the themes of language and communication in her work.

In She said I have a French face, Erika Adams’ text drawings and large-scale paper sculpture/drawings investigate the interstitial space between what we say (or make) and what we mean. In hole-punched text pieces, the awkwardness of assumed intersubjectivity is made plain. Inspired by interactions with students, friends and strangers in Montreal, Adams’ texts explore meanings behind the earnest, clumsy and odd things people say to each other. Especially considering the complications of translating between English and French, the shift from saying words to understanding meaning can seem like a small miracle. Adams’ paper sculptures/drawings exist in the same framework as language, with meaning and form found as much in the paper as in the intervals between. Attached to the wall in various configurations, single sheets of cut paper are lines and outlines. Like the artist Glenn Goldberg describes his process, these moments are about clarity and imprecision. Meaning is discovered and inferred through our peripheral vision, and it is in those moments when the translation can be conceived.

We are all translators, assigning words to thoughts and ideas and then relying on others to understand what we mean. That exchange is based on trust, experience and perhaps a dose of luck.

Erika Adams’ studio practice focuses on the exploration of locating the self within a larger context- particularly within social networks, family and community. In her work, Adams investigates how power and meaning are embedded in text and form. The images and installations she creates have a sense of those social relationships and are is inspired by insect societies, flocks of birds, wrestlers, her familial vernacular, poetry and everyday interactions.

Bio

Erika Adams is a multi-disciplinary artist with a background in printmaking. She earned a BA in both Art and Anthropology from UC Santa Cruz, an MFA from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and studied at the Tamarind Institute where she became a Master Printer. Adams’s work has been shown at numerous national and international exhibitions. She was an artist in residence at the Hall Farm Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Frans Masereel Center in Belgium, Penland School of Craft and Djerassi.