The Art of Adam Abraham

ABOUT ADAM ABRAHAM

-Artist Bio-

I am a multi-disciplinary artist working primarily in clay. I was born in Los Angeles in 1995 and grew up in the Conejo Valley area of Southern California. My first exposure to art was in the form of animation, video games, and decorative objects around the home. I’m interested in fantasy and mythology, magic and mysticism, alchemy, and the natural world. After high school I began exhibiting my artwork in group shows throughout Los Angeles while working fulltime in a fine art custom frame shop. I was always drawn towards the ornate gilded frames with arabesques and acanthus leaves. In spring of 2020, I took my first ceramics class and discovered my obsession for the medium of clay. Starting my ceramic journey with wheel thrown pottery and crystalline glazes, I later found a love for handbuilding and sculpture while in my first semester of undergrad.

My work is inspired by the decor I saw growing up in my mom’s home. Florals. Grapevines. Paintings of wine. Ornate mirrors. Motifs of fairies and woodland creatures. Etched glassware. Mosaic everything. Intricately patterned rugs. Sconces. Incense burners. Peacocks and hummingbirds everywhere. These are all things I have grown to love as a set of imagery that relates to her and the circumstances surrounding my childhood. I make work to help process the conflicting emotions I have around memories from my adolescence and how they shape me in the present. As an artist working in clay, I am intrigued by clay’s relationship to the body and its ability to hold memory. I’m also fascinated by the alchemic attributes of ceramics – its elemental qualities, how ceramic materials mimic the mineral composition of nature, and how these components change through the ceramic process. I am currently an undergraduate candidate at California State University, Long Beach.

-Artist Statement-

My practice combines my love for nature with my love for the decorative, influenced by art nouveau and rococo art aesthetics. My most recent body of work features lattice structures built with twisted coils which I adorn with floral elements. I relate to a flower’s unabashed uniqueness and flamboyance; a shameless call to attention. By weaving a network of vines, I seek to create tangled plant forms resembling the nervous system of living creatures. Inspired by the growth patterns of various plants, I strive to imbue in these works a wild, chaotic and untameable quality and an essence of fantasy and whimsy. In the areas where the vines converge, I create clusters of flowers in various stages of life as a representation of growth and resilience. These growth points are contrasted by negative spaces offering room to breathe during times of intensity.

Much of my work is built intuitively with little planning, allowing the clay to behave how it wants and myself to respond to it in turn. Rather than seeking answers in my work, I find myself using creative space as an opportunity to ask questions. What am I feeling while I make this work? Why am I drawn to these motifs? How does this piece want to exist and what shape is it currently taking? I don’t always need immediate resolutions, but rather a safe space for questioning myself and my inclinations. The repetitive process of twisting coils and pinching petals is a catharsis for me. An action to fixate on, to express uncertainties, and to help calm my chaotic restless mind.