Adam Crowley

“My paintings are about trying to understand reality in the contemporary environment.

My work manipulates the picture plane, leaving parts unpainted or unprimed. By fracturing the pictorial surface my paintings inhabit two modes of being, namely objecthood and painterly illusion. Cropping the image enhances the minuteness of the moment, a quick glance at a moment in time as it begins to dissipate. I also paint still lives from direct observation. I will change the still life several times in the course of the painting and paint each subsequent construction next to its predecessor in order to make a static image unseated. All of this under the idea that a singular way of seeing or understanding is easily countered by small adjustments to your sight of vision and the idea that everything is in constant motion.

I use my immediate surroundings as a metaphor for the transient nature of culture and time. The images I paint are derived from scenes around the city in which I live and show places in states of change. These are humble images, but ones that depict change and locality on many levels.

A major theme in my paintings is finding moments of beauty/contemplation in unconventional environments. I also work with the dichotomy between painting surface and painterly techniques of form and perspective used to portray convincing pictorial illusions. This project allows both ideas to be pushed further.”

Adam Crowley is an artist living and working in Kansas City. He received his BFA from the University of Central Missouri. His paintings address the endurance of image, the necessity for beauty, and the continued importance of painting in the contemporary world. His work has been shown throughout the US, including exhibitions in Kansas City, New York City, and Chattanooga, TN.

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