ARTIST STATEMENT

These works are a part of Nature Dress; a body of drawings and paintings that are a direct visual response to the rhythmic forms and energy observed in the natural environment of the farm where I paint. The work on Nature Dress began six months ago when I moved my studio to the country.  Moving closer to the natural world, I looked deeply into the variety I observed.

I observe patterns and fluid motion that I encounter on the farm. These include weather shifts, movement of water, changing light, the patterns of bird and plants and the influences of wind.

This work began with a close-up study of water flow. Recording slo-mo videos on my camera phone allowed me to observe the pattern of water movement.  I captured stop-action files of water spilling over rocks in the adjacent river and developed drawings based on what I observed and developed paintings from those sources. For my next paintings, I recorded blues as light changed; looking for the color intensity to shift so I could paint the range of color I needed on thumbnails to bring back to the studio.

I have unearthed unlimited resources around me and have developed a pattern of first developing observations and perceptions then painting from drawings and memory. Spontaneity is important, I frequently begin by setting up possibilities for invention, such as cutting stencils and using acrylic spray paint in the under painting, pouring paint and loosely drawing. At the top of the list of what I am after in my painting practice: close fluctuations of color, and the invention new forms.

BIOGRAPHY

Yura Adams was born in Sioux City, Iowa and paints in an industrial building in a farm field, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Adams received a BFA in painting and a MFA photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has been exhibited as a painter and intermedia artist throughout the United States in venues such as The New Museum in New York, Experimental Intermedia, Franklin Furnace,  New Music America, Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut; and one person shows at the John Davis Gallery in Hudson, New York. Adams has been the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts grants and was a 2009 regional representative in the New York Foundation of the Arts Mark program. She teaches art at Columbia-Greene Community College of Hudson, New York, where she is director of the Foundation Gallery, and has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island. Adams is represented by John Davis Gallery of Hudson, New York  and will open her next solo show at the gallery May 2016.