This system of poetics has been described by artist and critic Mario Naves as “verbs.” He writes:

The metaphysical underpinnings of these dense and delicate pictures divulge themselves gradually. Adams illuminates what are often abstruse avenues of philosophical thought, yet doesn’t put a fine point on them. Her pictures are particular as they are elusive, and she thrives on paradox.

While Adam’s paintings often have an immediate, even visceral impact on the viewer, their great strength may rest in their ability to draw viewers in and keep them visually, mentally, and emotionally engaged over long periods of looking, thinking and feeling. Her work has a unique core that confront the viewer, asking to give their exclusive attention to what is before their eyes, so that they focus more on the painting and not on the search for outside references. Her works ask the viewer to observe what happens when a wire-thin line journeys into an undefined field, or when jolts of color move in a parabolic trajectory across the canvas.

The critic Lance Esplund has said of Adams’s work:

One of the most startling things about Ms. Adams’s works is that their flat surfaces, as active, various and sometimes seemingly chaotic as they are, still maintain clockwork precision and clarity. It’s as if we were seeing the stages of growth or the steps of transformation, each accompanied by its gaseous residue or shed skin.

On the works featured in our current show, John Yau writes:

The overlapping transparent and semi-transparent layers, the multitude of abstract vocabularies engaging with each other in various ways, become an invitation to immerse oneself in the many different pleasures and possibilities that her paintings bring together. On every scale, Adams’s work invites a slow contemplative engagement, which runs counter to the quick visual consumption of a signature image or motif, which has become a commonplace experience in today’s art world.

Adams’s drawings and paintings have been the subject of more than thirty one-person shows in New York since the mid-1950s. Since the early 1960s Adams has lived in Vermont, where she enjoyed a long teaching career at Bennington College. She lives in an historic Victorian home with lush gardens, a pond, surrounded by the Green Mountains. The environment is graceful and includes a rich blend of colors, textures and shapes – as those integrated in her work. However, Adams has said that her long-time surroundings are only but one aspect of her work. While a place enhances, it does not ultimately inform the subject of her painting. It provides the solitude required to reflect on herself, disengage from the mainstream and view from a distance the issues that occupy the world.