Biography

"To call each thing by its right name. By its right name."

This is the simple principle that plays out on the canvases of painter Lisa Adams. Sometimes safe, sometimes playful, always a dichotomy of the obvious and the tacit, Adams uses familiar objects to challenge and explore the innocent deception in calling things by their right name.

"I cannot paint or draw a flower without writing FLOWER somewhere on the canvas" says Adams, who credits her technique in part to the American lexicon of branding. Her work is both juvenile and distinctly complex, capturing a sense of playful innocence and nostalgic desire for simplicity. Occasionally wry and always clever, Adams marries words, images and colors to achieve a result that is both literal and fanciful, challenging our minds and our eyes to acknowledge the object and perhaps see beyond its name.