July 31, 2025
China Adams
Poles, Walkers and a Black Sheep
CMay Gallery
May 17 - August 16, 2025
China Adams
In Poles, Walkers and a Black Sheep China Adams presents two distinct, but related bodies of work: black and white drawings of utility poles and sculptures made by combining geriatric walkers with brightly painted canvas fragments that have been twisted and molded to suggest human forms. Adams talks about the poles as being utilitarian yet outdated — they represent an antiquated but still necessary way to deliver electricity (power) to businesses and residential buildings. They can produce sparks (as evidenced by numerous fires in Los Angeles) and the wooden versions can even burn themselves. As pervasive as they are, they often go unnoticed, but Adams notices them. She studies, photographs, and then draws them with precision, emphasizing their graphic qualities, the filigree of the wires they support and the shapes they create when viewed against areas of sky. Utility poles are ubiquitous. Some have bulbous extensions — transformers — while others appear as elegant grids of black lines. Adams focuses on the relationship between positive and negative space in her drawings, representing the poles and wires as slices of an ongoing continuum.
In Crisscross (all works 2025), one is drawn to the T shape of the silhouetted pole that is just left of center in the square composition. From this anchor, numerous lines flow left and right against a Pointillist ground made by tapping a Micron-pen against the white paper. Curved and rectangular transformers are intermingled with the wires. In these modest-sized square and rectangular pen and graphite drawings, Adams calls attention to how these sculptural forms interact with the sky as two-dimensional abstractions. In an accompanying suite of drawings, Adams telescopes in on a fragment of a pole and focuses her attention on detailing a small section where wires meet transformers. These are rendered in graphite against a light yellow gouache background. In Sky Frame III, for example, the shapes are depicted in varying tonalities according to depth and placement which gives the abstracted work a more realistic and nuanced aura.
The pole drawings explore the relationships between point and line by calling attention to their subtle differences. They are rendered as graceful artifacts of the urban landscape. Less graceful but perhaps more intriguing are Adams' sculptures. Painted in vibrant hues of orange, yellow and pink, crumpled pieces of canvas are attached to geriatric walkers. While appearing casual at first, the precisely placed canvas pieces actually suggest human forms. In Lean, Drag, Hinge and Brace, the walker is upright, whereas in Sprawl it is on its side. Walkers aid the elderly or infirm: they are designed to provide support. As such, they are sturdy objects, yet Adams presents them as personified and dysfunctional.
The amorphous shaped canvas in Sprawl surrounding two legs of an overturned walker alludes to a person reaching out and calling for help. In the pink hued Drag, it is easy to imagine a limp body dragging itself across the floor while leaning on the aluminum walker with its flourescent yellow tennis ball covered feet for support. This image is at once haunting and comical. Brace may be the "Black Sheep" in the exhibition's title. In this sculpture, canvas painted a dark gray extends across the walker, again referencing a slumped and headless body. Like the other sculptures, Adams imbues the form with personality — something expressive and quasi-pathetic — a reminder of our eventual aging and need for support.
Thinking about the less than obvious relationship between the poles and the walkers brings up notions of fragility and strength, vulnerability and stoicism, and the mechanisms and infrastructures that carry our bodies and our electricity. As metaphors for cultural, physical and societal stasis, both bodies of work express decline and collapse.
Poles, Walkers and a Black Sheep
CMay Gallery
May 17 - August 16, 2025
China Adams
In Poles, Walkers and a Black Sheep China Adams presents two distinct, but related bodies of work: black and white drawings of utility poles and sculptures made by combining geriatric walkers with brightly painted canvas fragments that have been twisted and molded to suggest human forms. Adams talks about the poles as being utilitarian yet outdated — they represent an antiquated but still necessary way to deliver electricity (power) to businesses and residential buildings. They can produce sparks (as evidenced by numerous fires in Los Angeles) and the wooden versions can even burn themselves. As pervasive as they are, they often go unnoticed, but Adams notices them. She studies, photographs, and then draws them with precision, emphasizing their graphic qualities, the filigree of the wires they support and the shapes they create when viewed against areas of sky. Utility poles are ubiquitous. Some have bulbous extensions — transformers — while others appear as elegant grids of black lines. Adams focuses on the relationship between positive and negative space in her drawings, representing the poles and wires as slices of an ongoing continuum.
In Crisscross (all works 2025), one is drawn to the T shape of the silhouetted pole that is just left of center in the square composition. From this anchor, numerous lines flow left and right against a Pointillist ground made by tapping a Micron-pen against the white paper. Curved and rectangular transformers are intermingled with the wires. In these modest-sized square and rectangular pen and graphite drawings, Adams calls attention to how these sculptural forms interact with the sky as two-dimensional abstractions. In an accompanying suite of drawings, Adams telescopes in on a fragment of a pole and focuses her attention on detailing a small section where wires meet transformers. These are rendered in graphite against a light yellow gouache background. In Sky Frame III, for example, the shapes are depicted in varying tonalities according to depth and placement which gives the abstracted work a more realistic and nuanced aura.
The pole drawings explore the relationships between point and line by calling attention to their subtle differences. They are rendered as graceful artifacts of the urban landscape. Less graceful but perhaps more intriguing are Adams' sculptures. Painted in vibrant hues of orange, yellow and pink, crumpled pieces of canvas are attached to geriatric walkers. While appearing casual at first, the precisely placed canvas pieces actually suggest human forms. In Lean, Drag, Hinge and Brace, the walker is upright, whereas in Sprawl it is on its side. Walkers aid the elderly or infirm: they are designed to provide support. As such, they are sturdy objects, yet Adams presents them as personified and dysfunctional.
The amorphous shaped canvas in Sprawl surrounding two legs of an overturned walker alludes to a person reaching out and calling for help. In the pink hued Drag, it is easy to imagine a limp body dragging itself across the floor while leaning on the aluminum walker with its flourescent yellow tennis ball covered feet for support. This image is at once haunting and comical. Brace may be the "Black Sheep" in the exhibition's title. In this sculpture, canvas painted a dark gray extends across the walker, again referencing a slumped and headless body. Like the other sculptures, Adams imbues the form with personality — something expressive and quasi-pathetic — a reminder of our eventual aging and need for support.
Thinking about the less than obvious relationship between the poles and the walkers brings up notions of fragility and strength, vulnerability and stoicism, and the mechanisms and infrastructures that carry our bodies and our electricity. As metaphors for cultural, physical and societal stasis, both bodies of work express decline and collapse.