(This is part 2 of a two-part interview with artist Amy Adams. Part I is here).
detail, undead, by Amy Adams
Libby: The other day, I heard Frank Bramblett talk about how his paintings are things with an existence of their own, things that reference that real world but aren’t pretending to be other than what they are. When I saw your piece undead, I immediately thought of what Frank was saying.
Amy:I was thinking this morning, I can never make something that’s supposed to be something else. My litmus test for success is that the line I make has to have a real presence. I don’t strive for [making work that is] an analogy [to the real world]. Painting the circles is not just creating a two-dimensional thing but making something that has a real world presence.
Accumulation–you can make one thing and it does not necessarily have the capacity to assert itself. But with many and layering until you create a density, then it happens.
everythingORANGE, by Amy Adams
Libby: What would you say your subject is?
Amy:I think about being an individual situated in a landscape–of history and culture. I also think the world is chaotic.
I like other people’s work and totally admire graphic representation, narrative components, etc., but I could not distill what was important to me from all the choices.
Libby: What about the music?
Amy:I began collecting tape after my show last year. I’ve always been attracted to pieces of tape on the street. I always love line–and tape balled up on the ground is line. I picked up the tape mostly walking to the el.
I got a tape splicer, and without knowing what’s on the tape, I spliced. I lot of this show is about surprise, working within methodical, narrow constraints. I did not know what the piece [undead] would be before I got here.
everythingGREEN, by Amy Adams
Libby: Whose art work do you admire?
Amy: David Reed. I was [recently] visiting Merrilee Challiss and we went to the Birmingham Museum, and I saw my first David Reed in person!
I don’t look at art like mine, but I’m always looking, collecting, reading, hearing, having all your senses open, feeling overwhelming life, culture, knowledge, information–endless life.
(This is the end of a two-part interview with Amy Adams).
P.S. When I spoke to Adams, she mentioned that the parking lot across from Vox’s space in the Gilbert Building had closed, and that she was expecting to receive the letter from the Redevelopment Authority this week that evicts the gallery to make way for the Convention Center expansion. This means the gallery is running out of time to find a new space.
