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.
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Adian in his Brooklyn studio.
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“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.”
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“The structures are just a way for me to get to the surface.”
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“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.”
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“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.”
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“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.”
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“I love pastels. There is a weakness and strength to them.”
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“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.”
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“I consider them paintings, but hardly anyone else does. Those aren’t my battles.”
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“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.”
