Racial hierarchies, identities and power structures are embedded in the landscape. It is through the social practices of racism, sexism and classism that we produce markers by which we organize space. - Vanessa Lynn Lovelace, The Re-memory and Remembering of Nat Turner
Goldfinch is pleased to present our second solo exhibition with Carris Adams, "Get Over, Get Under, Get Easy, Get Greasy." The exhibition is on view from January 9 - February 12, 2022.
Bright, dark, overloaded, subtracted-Carris Adams' newest paintings explore color, legibility and movement. For "Get Over, Get Under, Get Easy, Get Greasy," Adams exhibits seven paintings on PVC panel inspired by pylon and neon signage. The paintings are a continuation of the artist's formal and conceptual investigation into markers that reference the various social, cultural, political and economic circumstances under which we labor. Similarly to her previous bodies of work, they grapple with commercial signage and how we advertise ourselves for ourselves and for the gaze of the other. Unlike the artist's previous works, these paintings take a larger step away from the source image and closer to embodying, collapsing, and affirming an alternate cosmology of space. Together the works point to multiple spaces, memories and realities.
Making reference to pylon signage - outdoor signs that are usually mounted on single or double poles - Adams stacks some of the paintings vertically and others side by side, off-center from the gallery walls, a move meant to further displace any hierarchical structuring of space. The gallery walls have been painted a darker color, meant to recall the night sky. By removing the paintings from a white wall, Adams situates them at a different time of day, in the sky of an unknowable landscape.
The Roots, Guns Are Drawn, from the album Tipping Point, lyrics as written by Tarik L. Collins Ahmir K. Thompson. Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, MOTHERSHIP MUSIC PUBLISHING
Yeah it would be cool it could be to
Stop running round in circles off of what we fuel
Living a lie eventually believing it's true
A lot of people here for us one could be you
It's outrageous and they just ain't nothing
But save us an ocean of brown fists in various flavors
A favor for a favor man, this is the majors
Tell me what you would do with no phone or pagers
No Kinko's, no Fed Ex and no ATM's
What you gone do when the police state begin
Well it already began but I guess it depends on what's really going on
what's happening, huh
Military target practicing
They finna write another patriot act again
The days is short the nights is long
The fight goes on
The pistol and the pipes are drawn
The middle of the night
We fight like barbarians
In sight of the former might
You might think that it's a waste
Of our time
And I think you would be right
Till he drop that rhyme
[Repeat]
And some might say that it's a waste of time
Cause ain't no amount of dancing finna break the bondage
We go to war and transcend space and time
When every record ain't a record just to shake behinds
You know the stakes is high we in the face of drama
That's why we can't shake it or escape the problem
Its like a game of roulette the barrel revolving
They only want to see us occupying a coffin
Mothers crying too often from they lost child leaving
From trying to get over, get under, get even
Get inside getting, getting dumped, getting greedy
We got to get it right
It ain't about to be easy
You better pull you goggles up, it's about to get greasy
Believe it's on as long as we can still speak freely
Pages of my life would make it hard to read me
I know my people hearing me, holler it you hear me
The middle of the night
We fight like barbarians
In sight of the former might
You might think that it's a waste
Of our time
And I think you would be right
Till he drop that rhyme
Artist's Bio
Carris Adams is an artist currently based in Houston, Texas. She received her BFA from the University of Texas at Austin (2013) and her MFA from the University of Chicago (2015). Adams's work has been exhibited at Carlos Gallery at the University of the South (Sewanee, TN), Courtyard Gallery, the University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX), The Studio Museum in Harlem ( New York, NY) , The Logan Center Exhibitions at The University of Chicago (Chicago, IL), Produce Model Gallery (Chicago, IL) Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery (Chicago,IL) and The Courtyard Gallery at The University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX).
