The Fourth Wall

Concurrently in the hallway gallery, The Fourth Wall is pleased to present, Missing Information, paintings and works on paper by Oslo based artist, Mel Adamson.

The idea for the Redacted drawings came out of quick observational sketches made by Adamson in 2017-18 while watching video clips of politicians, historians, news anchors and journalists discussing the Mueller investigation in its early stages. “I felt helpless in the studio, with the exception of enjoying making horizontal lines on drawing paper and panel. The restrictions I set for myself in these line studies somehow created a containment and calm. I grew to accept the process if not for any creative high points, at least as reliable and perhaps to have control over something in a time when everything felt so out of control. Eventually these drawings started to relate to the idea of the files of Robert Mueller. Files with missing pieces of information, yet, piece by piece, his files began to tell a story.”

The show also includes a wall of fifteen oil on panel works from Adamson’s Elegy series. In these works she weaves subjects as varied as changes in the natural environment due to increasing temperatures, wars being fought with the use of military drones, and the excesses and falsehoods of the current presidency. Adamson explains, “More importantly, these paintings are compelled by my amazement at the connection between all things living, the idea that everything contains its opposite, and simply sitting with the sticky discomfort of not having answers.”

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Mel Adamson is an artist, originally from the Bay Area, now based in Norway. Her primary subjects are the figure and imagery that refers to elements in nature. For her, painting provides a way of looking at something from different perspectives, and works best when all senses are engaged, where touch informs sight, and listening aids looking. Adamson received her MFA from the University of California at Berkeley where she was awarded the San Francisco Foundation Jack and Gertrude Murphy Fine Arts Fellowship. She has exhibited locally and internationally, including Hackett Freedman Gallery in San Francisco, 1st Street Gallery, Humboldt State University, Berkeley Art Center, Richmond Art Center, and H12 Gallery, croquis utstillinger, Oslo, Norway. Her paintings are included in public and private collections in the US and Europe. Adamson has taught at San Jose State University, California College of the Arts, and Stanford University. She lives in Oslo, Norway and also maintains a studio in Richmond, California.