Artists Interview Artists: John M. Adams

John M. Adams, an Arlington, VA based artist, participates in the Artists Interview Artists Project. Below John responds to another artist's five questions (Richard Kooyman). In order to participate, John had to provide me with five questions for some other artist to answer. The assigning of questions to artists is completely random. If you're an artist and interested in participating, let me know.

1. Does the "human hand" still have value in art today?

From the bulk of discussions I have had with people, it seems that “transfiguration of materials or circumstances” is important to most artists and viewers of art, but to different degrees. My own work relies heavily on notions of mark making and drawing, but it is only one medium through which we can share an experience. That is a way that I explore, question and mediate my experience, but I cannot claim that it is the only way to do it. My own experiences and circumstances have led me to where I am now with my artwork, and the way I look at the artwork of others. I expect for others to mediate their own experiences in a way that is personal and effective to them, and that that process should and will be different than mine even when it approaches the same subject.

I believe experience of an artwork must transcend the materials alone in order to be effective and stick with the viewer.

2. According to a certain philosophy ,the best things in life can't be told. The second best are what we try(but are unable) to talk about. The third best are what we end up talking about. Where does that put your art?

I believe you are referring to something I read in one of Alan Watts books or lectures, perhaps from Creative Meditations, or The Book. These are the kind of questions I started to explore in the year leading up to grad school. I suppose my personal realization that verbal/written language is incapable of expressing (but not exploring) some element of experience that I may come to as a thinking person in this world, definitely affected the subject of my artwork, beginning an exploration of perception and experience. I have always been intrigued by the way things operate and the way we understand and experience this operation.

I have entertained the idea that art can express and perhaps create these experiences you are referring to. I do believe that my artwork explores these areas of experience through my own process creating the work as well as the encounter I orchestrate for the viewer when they encounter the artwork. The paintings are created though many successive layers of repetitive mark making which utilizes peripheral perception, an almost automatic reaction to the distribution of material from the previous layers and sessions in the studio. This layering is not just a physical process. Throughout the painting session, I am mentally and physically reconciling what has happened before, what I expect or want to happen, and what is happening now on the painting in front of me. The viewer experiences the painting in almost reverse order, as the transparency of layers slowly reveal themselves within the artwork. A sense of “ambiguous familiarity” draws the viewer in to explore the object more closely, relying upon their experiences and mental state in order to relate to the work.

At this point, either in the studio, the gallery, walking down the street, reading a page or staring at a computer screen, we discuss it. So it seems that’s where “it puts” you, me, and the artwork.

3. Is art the means to rapture?

Hmmm, rapture:

rap•ture (r p ch r) n.

1. The state of being transported by a lofty emotion; ecstasy.
2. An expression of ecstatic feeling. Often used in the plural.
3. The transporting of a person from one place to another, especially to heaven.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

I suppose the response depends on your definition. As stated earlier, I am interested in utilizing the expressive and creative functions of the mind that are often overlooked, and through artwork, I invite the viewer into this experience. Throughout time, the visual arts have been a medium for exploring “the human experience”. All the time, the arts attempt to inspire thought and experience concerned with truth, spirituality, reality and beauty. Sometimes these concepts become so intertwined in artwork they are not easily separated, and any one of the four may fall into favor and appear to stand for all of them. Concepts of beauty, for instance have been affected and attested to by artwork for centuries. “What is beauty?” we may ask, as a teacher did of me. My response was “transformation of understanding” – who can not attest to the power of such an experience? If an artwork can do that, evoking a strong emotional/conceptual response, then would we call that rapture?

4. If you were to stop making art, what activity would you replace it with?

Well, besides sleeping for more than 5 hours a night, I would have to find some other way to challenge myself and keep thinking. I believe I would use that time for writing, hiking, fishing, and just sitting still.

5. What does your art do for your society?

Perhaps that is a question best answered in hindsight, and most likely by someone other than myself.

I’m not going make any claims that I’m actively changing the world through my artwork, let’s clarify it I make paintings and drawings, I’m not out actively making an immediate differences in society at large. A small audience sees them in a gallery or on someone’s wall, or maybe in my studio. I would like for more people to see them, but looking at artwork requires something from the viewer, participation. Everyone is welcome, people just need to come out and look. The thinking about it happens naturally.

I guess my work would start with the individual. Perhaps the work can get someone to explore the way they understand and experience their world. I may like for that to happen, but it’s up to the viewer if it does after I put the work out there. I have done what I can at that moment. If anything, it becomes one of those things “we end up talking about”.

Previous Interviews:
Juno Doran (questions by James W. Bailey)
Josh Feldman (questions by Joseph Barbaccia)
Lisa Stephenson (questions by Whitney Lynn)
Joseph Barbaccia (questions by Josh Feldman)
James W. Bailey (questions by Matt Hollis)
Matt Hollis (questions by Juno Doran)
Carol Es (questions by James Leonard)
Alexandra Silverthorne (questions by Ami Lahoff)
Christine Buckton Tillman (questions by Carol Es)
Douglas Witmer (questions by Alexandra Silverthorne)
Sky Pape (questions by Douglas Witmer)
Whitney Lynn (questions by Lisa Stephenson)
Heather Levy (questions by Joanne Greenbaum)
Heather Lowe (questions by Samantha Wolov)
Samantha Wolov (questions by Heather Levy)
Timothy McClellan (questions by Heather Lowe)
James Leonard (questions by Sky Pape)
Joanne Greenbaum (questions by Timothy McClellan)
Richard Kooyman (questions by Robert Walton)
Candy Keegan (questions by Warren Craghead)
Robert Walton (questions by Candy Keegan)

Comments

[alberto]

this is a great site, i really like the idea of artist interviewing artist. i will absolutely be back to read more, and i would love to participate. i hope you don't mind, but i would like to put a link to your site on my blog.

[roman zelgatas]

great questions
hope to see more