Artist Talk: Carris Adams

Goldfinch is proud to present our third solo exhibition with Carris Adams, Signs All Kinds. Taking the form of a dramatic, gallery-spanning installation of approximately 50 black and white, enamel works on Dura-lar, Adams' presentation continues her longstanding exploration of language, space, visibility and legibility through a painter's lens. For this exhibition, Adams shares an ongoing body of work begun in 2020, during the earliest phases of Covid lockdown, that was never explicitly intended for exhibition. Instead, these paintings have  served as a personal collection and archive consisting of isolated words that, as the artist notes, are "meant to inspire, to reference, to research, to push, to pull. Some will transition into paintings, drawings, titles, sculptures, fantasies of works that are too expensive to produce, prints and installations."

Adams will combine and layer these individual pieces into ephemeral formations that play with the roles of connotation and denotation in speech acts as well as with the contingency of language itself. In some moments, words or phrases emerge with singular clarity; in others, they are layered and juxtaposed beyond decipherability. Because this  configuration of works will only ever exist in this particular form once, the installation itself may be considered as  a performative speech act on Adams' part, wherein the artist shows--through her active process of choosing, combining, assembling and re-assembling, blurring and foregrounding text -- that language is a  system that exists both outside and within us, structuring our relationship to culture, nature and ourselves in sometimes legible, but often times illegible ways.

"These works are simple. Black text on a soft white, translucent material commonly used for planning and preparation. Yet most of these works have no plan, no prep and no future beyond their current state.

This is a morgue.

A collection meant to inspire, to reference, to research, to push, to pull. Some will transition into paintings, drawings, titles, sculptures, fantasies of works that are too expensive to produce, prints and installations.

Many will not make the transition at all.

This is a morgue.

Stored. Forgotten. Bought. Sold. No longer existing. Never mine.

This is a morgue.

A pictorial reference with no actual images. Letters, shapes, redactions, omissions, phrases, and names. A pictorial reference with no actual images with very little direction.

This is a morgue.

A collection of facings that looked at me and I looked back at it.

The work is not for the merchant or the customer. The work is not for the land. The work is not sign painting. The work is not graphic design.

This is a morgue.

At one time they were called Bones. And now they are called nothing. 

This is a morgue.

Markers of the landscape. Some that got me lost, some found me and others decorate the land, revealing our habits, desires, hatred, love, hopes, fears, histories, presents, pasts and futures.

This is a morgue. 

Cuttings, notes, excerpts, citations, recitations, collections, sayings, marginalia, selections, signs, signifiers, letters, sounds, words, legibility, illegibility, quotations, passages, references, research, clippings, pieces, fragments, trimmings, snippets, bits.

This is a morgue.

Not the first and not the last." 

-- Carris Adams