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| Chris Adams |
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Chris spent 15 years working as a freelance travel photographer in Sydney before shifting his focus to painting in 1999, subsequently prompting a move to the NSW Central Tablelands to build a home and studio in 2003. His paintings have been exhibited in Gulgong, Stanthorpe and Melbourne. Chris’ artistic influences draw on the link between the very late work of Monet and that of the American and German abstractionists of the ‘40s and ‘50s. Jazz music from early to mid ‘60s, particularly Coltrane, also parallels as inspiration, primarily as an abstract thought regarding musical structure and its subsequent totality as a parallel to the rhythm of painting and the finding of that magical moment of resonance. Chris believes both the avant-garde jazz musician and the sensory painter operate on a level that involves the body, the emotions, the mind and the spirit, all operating simultaneously: “you move, you express your sensations, you construct improvised sequence overlays around varied rhythms, all fused with your spirit. For me, painting is very much about the moment present and dealing with the flux of change therein.” a belief which stems from his profound interest in early Chinese philosophy, notably the texts of the Laozi, Zhuangzi and Huainanzi.
His pursuit of subject matter varies from his responses to the intangible and abstract sensations experienced in the presence of natural phenomena, to the images encountered whilst in a state of somnolence. His work is not about details, only the overwhelming effect afforded by a complete responsiveness and resonance with the moment. He attempts to fill his paintings with more of everything; images that are often constantly moving and which reveal surfaces that are all-over, harmonized and homogenous, built from simple forms overlayed with multiple rhythms. Chris believes that it is not enough to simply observe – one has to assimilate with the moment, be it the tempestuous, multi-coloured flashing of a nightstorm, the blinding dissolution of a mirage, the ethereal glow of an enveloping Moroccan sandstorm or the shifting layers of a transitory reflection.
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