Good abstraction demands an essential element: absolute command and awareness of one’s body. More often than not, abstraction is shaped by the intricate interplay of physical and psychical motions, a process in which movement and sensation translate onto canvas through an intuitive flow of color and uninhibited mark-making.
Yet another crucial factor is finding harmony and balance within the seemingly chaotic accumulation and layering of painterly gestures—a process that follows the turbulence of the artist’s inner world and sensory responses. In this way, a strong abstract painting functions much like a well-composed piece of music, where disparate sounds, movements, and pauses are carefully counterbalanced. Abstraction, like a musical composition, becomes a way to navigate and make sense of an intangible space—one that seamlessly intertwines the materiality of our sensations with the ephemerality of emotional and mnemonic reactions, existing before language or codified interpretation.
Lindsay Adams’ vibrant abstractions exist precisely at this intersection, where a deeply physical and lyrical response to reality unfolds. Her work negotiates the relationship between self and surroundings, giving form to emotions, sensations, and the infinite expressive possibilities found in this liminal space. “Abstraction is both a language and a way of thinking—an approach that allows me to engage with possibility rather than certainty,” the artist told Observer at the opening of her debut solo with Sean Kelly Gallery amid the frenetic energy of this year’s Frieze Los Angeles. “For me, abstraction is not void of meaning; it is more of a tool to expand meetings, making space for intuition, ambiguity and sensoria.”
Fluctuating within airy, vaporous atmospheres, calibrated swaths of color appear as if they could extend infinitely, unfolding in a harmonious sequence that moves with its own internal rhythm—a cadence of repetition and continuous variation. Her goal is to create a dynamic yet open abstract field where the viewer is invited to wander, drift and surrender to the sensations and suggestions activated by the canvas. This concept also informs the title of the exhibition, “Keep Your Wonder Moving.” Originally taken from a note written by poet Patricia Spears Jones to philosopher Audre Lorde, the phrase encapsulates Adams’ ability to construct parallel sensory dimensions and evoke entire worlds, offering the viewer the freedom to navigate the multiple possibilities of imagination her paintings unlock: “Abstraction is deeply connected to both freedom and liberation; it allows for multiple realities to exist at once, for gestures to hold both history and futurity.”
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In her latest body of work, the Chicago-based artist’s approach to abstraction feels more liberated and fluid than in previous years. Moving away from a need to tether her abstractions to the natural world, Adams has fully abandoned the floral references that characterized her earlier work, transforming the painted surface into an open, ever-shifting field of sensation. “Abstraction is deeply connected to both freedom and liberation; it allows for multiple realities to exist at once, for gestures to hold both history and futurity,” she explained. “As I think about how my work has evolved, meeting at the intersection of both representation and abstraction, I appreciate the latitude this has allowed me.”
Like a harmonic progression, Adams’ rhythmic swaths of color, with their lively tones, introduce change and contrast, fluttering over a more homogeneous vaporous chromatic atmosphere as if they were reflections of light shimmering on a liquid surface or the higher tones of a clarinet or saxophone suddenly erupting within the underlying harmony to create a more dynamic and engaging experience.
This analogy is something Adams is deeply aware of, and her process “moves between spontaneity and control, much like improvisational music—where rhythm, repetition and silence play a role.” She believes intuitive mark-making is an embodied act—one that carries the weight of memory, movement and emotion. “At the same time, there is a musicality to how I compose a painting—certain marks function like refrains, colors create harmonies and tensions and space operates as both pause and breath.”
In her work, rhythm emerges from a continuous dialogue with the canvas, a back-and-forth process in which she steps in and out of the universe she is creating, pushing the boundaries of expansion within the organic growth suggested by color and space. “My process is rooted in response—each mark, wash or layer builds upon what came before, creating a conversation between intention and discovery,” she said.
Calibrating moments of action and silence, repetition and variation, intuition and control, the artist engages in a continuous negotiation between her physical presence, her emotional responses and the canvas. “My body is always negotiating with the work, responding to scale, texture and resistance,” she said, and in this sense, despite the entirely abstract vocabulary, Adams’ paintings inevitably carry political implications, as they prompt us to consider how our bodies and minds react, navigate or surrender to an open field of ambiguous sensations—urging us to find meaning as they interact with our inner world, much like the continuous flux of information we process daily.
Adams’ abstract canvases function as spaces of discovery for both artist and viewer. The canvas becomes a site for training awareness—of one’s perception and presence in the world, of how experience is processed, and of how it can be translated and expressed both within and beyond language. “This balance between the instinctual and the intentional mirrors how we navigate the world—where structure and improvisation coexist in rhythm.”
Lindsay Adams’ “Keep Your Wonder Moving” is on view at Sean Kelly in Los Angeles through March 8, 2025.
