Rachel Adams, a leading visual artist based in Glasgow, Scotland, is returning to Japan after six years with a solo exhibition at Yoshimi Arts in Osaka. The exhibition, entitled “Home Grown”, will be her second solo exhibition in Japan.
Our encounter with Rachel Adams focused on the sculpture work she presented in the group exhibition, “Paper”, held in 2013 at Saatchi Gallery in London. The work appeared to possess the features of classic bronze and stone sculptures, but we perceived something distinctive about the sculpture’s sense of weight. As one looked at it more closely, it could be seen that the sculpture was composed of colored paper. The striking and unprecedented use of a familiar material leaves a strong impression on the mind.
In the following year, Adams was invited to present her work in the group exhibition, “Material and Form in a digital age”, to be held at Yoshimi Arts in 2014. In 2015, the gallery hosted her first solo exhibition in Japan, "Open Studio". The presented works—a series of sculptures created with hand dyed fabric, digitally fabricated acrylic shapes and traditional sculptural tools—highlighted contradictions in both our perceived notions of history and hierarchical structures separating art from design.
The outbreak of the global pandemic this year has transformed communities and lifestyles everywhere in the world. The cases and mortalities in Europe and the United States continue to grow. Scotland, Adams’ home country, has also faced lockdown a few times since the beginning of the pandemic. Exhibitions at museums and galleries have been shut down and art fairs forced to cancel, putting the entire art industry into great uncertainty.
During this challenging time, Adams attempted to create artwork by growing mushrooms on a magazine, “ELLE Decoration” (UK), that she subscribes to monthly. In her upcoming solo exhibition, Adams plans to unveil her creation, made from each issue of the magazine from March 2020 through to January 2021, drawing attention to the emergence of the pandemic.
→the issues of the magazine were chaged: from April 2020 through to January 2021