Atticus Adams, an artist specializing in sculpture, showcases the profound ability of art to craft aesthetics, significance, and evoke emotions using industrial materials. Predominantly utilizing aluminum mesh commonly found in screen doors, windows, and filters, Adams crafts abstract artworks and installations. His creations often take on the forms of flowers, clouds, and various natural phenomena.
Atticus works spontaneously, feeling his way
toward the objects that take shape in his mind as he shapes them almost entirely by
hand. He occasionally adds color and texture to his work by applying paint or
broken auto glass. “Metal mesh is a beautiful, flexible material that allows
you to explore shadow and transparency in endless ways,” he says. “The material
lends itself to these biomorphic shapes, which aren’t necessarily intentional.
The sculptures seem fragile but are actually quite resilient—like nature
itself,” he says.
Recycling—as a practice and a concept—is
essential to Atticus’s work. He often uses old industrial, architectural
materials to create his art. Also, he reuses his own work, turning old installations
into new artworks. Transformation, of course, is at the heart of all recycling:
turning one thing into another; and in his art specifically, making something
functional into something aesthetic; turning rough material into gentle forms.
Hope is at the core of his art, and may be
emblematic of recycling: “Making something beautiful out of something mundane
or even ugly is really what I’m trying to do with my art,” he says. “When it’s
successful, I think it shows how bleakness or blight can be replaced by (or
subsumed into) its opposite. To me that’s hope, as an active, deliberate
process, as well as an emotional embrace of possibility—and I think it’s
reflected in the work.”
Atticus grew up in West Virginia, steeped in
traditional folk art. Atticus has fond summer memories of screened-in porches
and screen doors that practically dissolved the barrier between inside and
outside, allowing the warmth and nature to permeate each day. This association
continues to resonate in his art.
His formal art training includes stints at
Yale School of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, and Harvard School of
Architecture. Atticus's art has been exhibited in national institutions like
The Carnegie Museum of Art and The Westmoreland Museum of American Art. His
awards include receiving Artist of the Year from the Pittsburgh Center for the
Arts in 2018. His sculptures are now found in public and private collections in
the USA, Great Britain, Europe, Australia, Saudi Arabia, China, and The
Philippines.
