From Ruin to Redemption
Honoured to announce two exhibitions in Warsaw and England opening this month.
Apologies for my silence in August. All of July and August I was painting and drawing in preparation for two exhibitions featuring mostly new art. Once these exhibitions are running, there will be a return to more regular articles on Substack. Thank you again for your patience and support.
Alexander Adams: Od ruin do odkupienia/From Ruin to Redemption, Warsaw Archdiocese Museum, Warsaw (19 Sept.-2 Feb. 2025) features paintings from 2024 on the Passion of Christ, alongside a selection of ink illustrations from the books Iconoclasm and Culture War, exhibited for the first time. This is the first museum solo exhibition of my art in over a decade.
It will include a painting of the ruined Warsaw Cathedral, acquired by the museum this month. New paintings are on the Passion of Christ, using as source material photographs taken by Nineteenth Century artists, who photographed models in religious tableaux, to be later painted. What caught my eye was the striking theatrical qualities - as well as the touching poverty of the props: a broom for a spear, a bedsheet for a robe, a pile of books for a stone block - and the beauty of the expression. These rehearsals have a dignity and depth that transcends their utilitarian preparatory function.
Paintings of ruins (including two of Warsaw ruins, one never-before exhibited) are joined by illustrations from my books that deal with iconoclasm. This will be the first ever exhibition of these ink-stipple drawings, made between 2018 to 2021.
Museum website: https://maw.art.pl/en/home-2/
Echoes of Africa, 108 Fine Art, Harrogate (6 Sept.-26 Oct.)
The subject of Africans (taken from photographs of the 1950s-1970s) showed people engaging in the most primal of activities - combat competition, dance, music-making, worship. I was powerfully impressed by the vigour and athleticism of the people and their commitment to ancestral traditions and innate drives. The scenes were a reproof to modernity and colonialism, applicable to our own lives.
Celebrating ancient customs, these drawings do not just look backwards but remind us of how necessary the understanding and harnessing of primal energy and communal activities are. Unshackled by technology and unhindered by today’s ubiquitous unnatural diet and lifestyle, these figures have a natural freedom, grace and power that should impress us all, regardless of race or faith.
The medium of oil pastel (new to me) presented me with a great challenge. The drawings were uncorrectable. There was no room for error but there was also no room for caution. I had to raise my game.
Gallery website: https://108fineart.com/news/
Starting in late September, the next articles will include a profile of a living sculptor and a discussion about the centrality of faith in a new museum complex.
Beautiful images. It’s wonderful to read that you are focusing on your art. Very best wishes for the upcoming exhibitions.