'Mr. Jones' ExhibitHighlights Adams Artwork Through Sept. 23
class=""MsoNormal"">SALISBURY, MD---The drawings and paintings of award-winning artist Jamie Adams are showcased in the exhibit “Mr. Jones and the Pipsqueaks” August 26-September 23, at Salisbury University’s Atrium Gallery in the Guerreri University Center. A reception with the artist is 6-8 p.m. Friday, September 16.
class=""MsoNormal"">Adams has earned a number of awards for his art, including the Violette deMazia Scholarship from the Barnes Foundation in 2000. His portraits have been commissioned and collected across the country and abroad spotlighted in solo exhibitions at the Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia.
class=""MsoNormal"">A commissioned portrait artist for several years, Adams said, “My own work has tended to be very much spinning off of that. I tend to do portraits that are not strict likenesses but sort of a compilation of things. I would say that my work has a quirky, comical stylization.”
class=""MsoNormal"">The exhibit at SU consists of paintings, drawings and compilation pieces. Adams said the paintings are portraits of himself–one an image of his youth and the other a peek into the future. “One kind of looks like what I think I looked like 20 years ago and the last piece is another painting of how I imagine myself as an old man, entitled Lonely Old Man.”
class=""MsoNormal"">The compilation pieces, a set of small drawings, were created by combining his work and the works of his daughters. “I’ve taken some of their drawings and included them into some of mine. They have just a wonderful quality to them. I think they are pretty fun pieces,” he said.
class=""MsoNormal"">The exhibit’s name–“Mr. Jones and the Pipsqueaks”– reflects his family life. “I’m married and I have four daughters. These works tend to mimic my immediate surroundings,” he said.
class=""MsoNormal"">A cowboy theme in his drawings he said is inspired by his surroundings in Missouri, but Adams said the overall subject of the exhibit is the working process of an artist. “One of the reasons why I included the small drawings is I want to give some of the sense of how I work through the process of generating ideas. I look at this show as having an instructional purpose as well; to show a range of activity that is part of my methodology.”
class=""MsoNormal"">Adams earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University in 1983 and his Master of Fine Arts from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2000. He has been employed by many institutions as an instructor of art, including Salisbury University in 2002 and most recently at Washington University in St. Louis as Core Director of the Art Department.
class=""MsoNormal"">Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday. Admission is free and the public is invited. For more information call 410-548-2547 or visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu. "