When walking into PSU’s Sliver Center for the Performing Arts it is hard to ignore the numerous paintings that have been hanging since September 8th. The show that you are walking through, and hopefully taking time to enjoy, is Jane Adams’s show Identity: The Personal and Collective Paintings and Drawings.
Adams is a painter native to New Hampshire. She “grew up in the Great North Woods” where she spent summers attending workshops at the White Mts. Festival of the Arts. Her Bachelors of Fine Art Degree was earned at the University of New Hampshire. She currently lives in Gonic, NH while showing in galleries and museums throughout New England. The exhibit, executed by the Karl Drerup Art Gallery, is a culmination and display of three series of paintings and drawings that show Adams unique use of varied surface.
In the exhibit are Adams’ black and white drawings of single subjects such as Red Neck At Day’s End.These drawings, done in graphite, incorporate her repeated themes of identity and human figurative narrative. This thread carries over to her oil paintings that feature singular portrait images that are patterned and textured, to emphasize the subject’s characteristics. These singular subjects are set against brightly colored backdrops that are populated with images indicative of the subjects’ identity, as seen in Women with Eyes Wide Open. Some of the canvases with lone figures are perched on cherry wood mantels, made by her wood worker husband. The artist voiced that they are used to “elevate the figure” giving them a higher sense of importance and alluding to reverence.
The last group of serial paintings are energetic, densely populated with figures these works speak of humanities ” perpetual need to communicate and connect ” the artist says. These themes can be seen in her piece March at Down. Figures in some of these group or cluster paintings are holding banners and flags, moving symbols of formal communication. The artist talks about “belief, allegiance or idea(s)” that ” reveal the human condition of loyalty, passion and fanatic alignment”.
Jane Adams artwork is poignant and touching in light of civil protest and workers rights in relation to the digital age that we, as viewers inhabit. I urge all students who haven’t had the chance, to view the show before it is taken down on Saturday, October 5th. Adams mark making and subject matter is touching and will captivate you.