Atticus Adams isn’t afraid to revisit his childhood memories.
Born in Oregon and raised in West Virginia, Adams often speaks—with a soft
Southern twang—of summers spent at his grandmother’s house. The green apples
and salt she would prepare in the August heat, the dress linings from her
fashion trunks, and the weathered screen of her porch door all appear as
oblique references in his work.
Adams’s memories and sculptures evoke a
Faulkner-like saga of summers in Appalachia: soft silken weeds floating above
wild, overgrown grass; floral petals tilted by summer rain; or algae swaying in
mountain streams and creeks. His chosen material, aluminum and metal mesh, is
both durable and porous, nimble yet sharp. Each sculpture is formed almost
entirely by hand, shaped intuitively from industrial mesh and sometimes layered
with paint or fragments of glass to enhance depth and reflection. What begins
as raw, utilitarian material becomes lyrical and organic through
transformation—an act central to his practice.
His work often carries quiet themes of
resilience, renewal, and beauty emerging from the ordinary. Adams frequently
reuses and repurposes industrial or architectural materials, continuing a
dialogue between fragility and strength, function and form.
Atticus grew up steeped in traditional folk art.
Several members of his family were self-taught artists, deeply involved in
crafts such as wood carving and quilting. “Making tangible objects is
definitely part of my family heritage,” he says. “I come from a tradition of
using simple, readily available materials for creative expression—I like to
think of my work as Neo-Appalachian Folk Art.”
His formal art training includes studies at the
Yale School of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Harvard School
of Architecture. Adams’s art has been exhibited in national institutions
including the Carnegie Museum of Art, The Mattress Factory, The Frick
Pittsburgh Museum, and The Westmoreland Museum of American Art. His sculptures
are now part of public and private collections across the United States,
Mexico, Great Britain, Spain, Australia, Saudi Arabia, China, and the
Philippines.
