Adam Abada: inside outside in
Tetrapod Gallery
865 N Virgil Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90029
July 15 – Aug 12, 2023
Opening reception July 15th / 5 – 10 PM
Tetrapod Gallery presents inside outside in by Adam Abada featuring drawings made across the span of a decade.
Abada’s artistic journey in curating this exhibition has been a meticulous process of self-reflection and introspection. With a deep focus on capturing emotions and experiences associated with different places, his drawings incorporate elements of expressionism, where style and form reflect the mood and atmosphere of each piece. Through his art, Abada delves into the concept of how our individual experiences shape our understanding of the world. As societies create concepts and constructs to guide us, Abada highlights the complexities of examining our consumption, both physically and intellectually, and unraveling the intricate pieces that form our cultural fabric.
Each drawing in the exhibition serves as a tactile and textured record of places, thoughts, and feelings. Abada’s works are not limited to a visual representation of buildings or subjects; the drawings delve into the historical significance of the subjects he portrays. Through his drawings, he chronicles the evolution and disappearance of businesses, neighborhoods, and communities, highlighting the interconnectedness of everything and the history that lies beneath the surface.
The exhibition also features drawings in a sculptural form as installations where the drawings on paper are in the shape of bricks, creating a multi-dimensional experience. By arranging the bricks in various patterns, Abada aims to provide a deeper understanding of his creative process.
Adam:
As long as I can remember I’ve been drawing. I find the act of touching paper, with a hand or pen, soothing and comforting. Paper contains a simple complexity and conundrum – it’s a three dimensional object that’s so thin it can act as a two dimensional conceptual space. We can interact with it physically, by touching and feeling, or mentally, by observing and thinking. It’s finite and endless all at once. I find this intoxicating. As a result, my drawing practice took on a sort of meditative tone, like writing in a diary. You could even call it a compulsion. Images and thoughts from my day clamored around in my skull screaming for release. Over time I worked it into my art practice. The drawings became representative of my mood and feelings.
Just like you can never step in the same river twice, as it is not the same river nor you the same person, you cannot stand on the same street corner twice. Everything we do, down to the very pen strokes of these drawings, is connected to a living, breathing, changing world that was not the same as it was one second ago.
In a changing world, value can be held in structural materials, architecture, the rooms within, an engraving, a glass factory, a reflection, a basement, a memory, a hinge, a riot door, a tattered flag, an expired carton of milk, or an ancient bar of soap melted against the glass of the window. The grain of a sidewalk outside of what was once a grocer and then a laundromat and then a restaurant but now a bar gets worn and changed and worked over and layered, retaining some part of its past but always moving forward. A sign tells so much more than the words contained on it.
There’s historical relevance, as well, as actual documents of physical places extending into and attempting to understand the line of traditional American art. These are drawings of place and these are drawings of feeling. Each one contains the hope that anybody can reach out to feel something and be felt back in return.
Adam Abada (b. New York, NY, 1987) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. This is his first solo exhibition.
