ADAM ADACH: New Paintings
April 2nd - April 30, 2005
Opening reception: Saturday April 2, 6-8 pm


D’Amelio Terras is pleased to present the debut New York solo exhibition of Polish painter Adam Adach. Adach, who currently lives and works in Paris, will show a series of oil paintings depicting both historical and autobiographical subjects.

The imagery within his current body of work is derived from objects such as anonymous portraits, discarded photo albums, books, and old magazines. Adach is interested in the way in which ideologies such as communism and fascism have affected the individual within the different nations of Europe. His use of discarded photographs, both of his own family and of unknown people and places, points to gaps in the grand narrative of Twentieth Century Europe when it comes to the ‘little people.’

Adach considers his paintings connected, not by a linear narrative but by the subjective associations that he makes. Although his paintings are far removed from their source imagery, Adach maintains that the documentary aspect of the found photograph allows him to explore “a different dimension” of the image “without losing its link to history.” Adach’s paintings have been described as enveloped in a “northern light” characteristic of the winter landscapes and monochromatic, repetitive architecture of Eastern Europe. Both the remembered and unknown past are explored through a pictorial space of muted, yet textured and rich, blocks of colors and shape.

Adach’s work was included in “Urgent Painting,” at Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France (2002) and can currently be viewed in “Recent Acquisitions” at the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.