Justin Adian’s Brooklyn Fort
Painter Justin Adian’s sugar-coated palette is enough to make your mouth water. It doesn’t help that the Texas-born artist tends to stretch his glossy canvases over pillow-y forms that often resemble abstract treats. Eye candy in the best sense, his wall-mounted works are now on view at Skarstedt’s Chelsea space as part of Adian’s first solo show with the gallery in New York. Here, Adian offers a tour of his studio.
Adian’s “Fort Worth” is on view until October 24th at Skarstedt, New York, skarstedt.com.
Adian in his Brooklyn studio.
“I saw a John Chamberlain foam sculpture at a David Zwirner summer show. On my way home, I found a piece of foam. (This was before everybody was crazy about bed bugs). I tried to make a sculpture out of it, and when that didn’t pan out, I decided to try to make it into a painting by stretching canvas around it. And that’s how these got started.”
“The structures are just a way for me to get to the surface.”
“I know it’s cool not to care about titles, but I feel like if I’m putting something into the world, I should give it a name.”
“I’ve been doing these latex drawings for years—where I cut out pieces of dried paint and stick them to paper. I’m better at manipulating physical objects.”
“I feel like so many Southerners try to escape the South. I love going to—and leaving—Texas. The feelings are tied together in my mind.”
“I love pastels. There is a weakness and strength to them.”
“Living in the city, we are surrounded by all these amazing architectural moments, whether that is an assemblage of trash, or a subway pole with a big chunk out of it. The language of New York is pretty abstract.”
“I consider them paintings, but hardly anyone else does. Those aren’t my battles.”
“I made an absurd amount of work for this show over the summer because I had this fear I wasn’t going to have enough to fill the space. It was a relief when we finally hung everything up.”
