From March 1st to 12th, 2022, SomoS presents the first exhibition in Berlin by noted Canadian visual artist Adam Lupton, featuring paintings created during his extended artist residency, which was supported by The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. In “Gradually, then Suddenly,”Lupton’s ability to reveal the universal by unabashedly delving into the personal is expressed in new works.
Image above (f.l.t.r.): Adam Lupton – The Hellish Tattoo of the Heart, 2021, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 140 x 200cm // Shiny Shiny, Shiny Boots of Leather, 2021, 140 x 200 cm, oil on canvas // Landscape with Branches and Figs, 2021, oil on canvas, 60 x 80 cm // Human Entropy, 2021, Oil on canvas, 220 x 180 cm. Images courtesy of the artist
In this multifaceted survey, Lupton’s uncanny and surreal work creates enlightening links between the personal experience of OCD and the pervasive anxieties of society at large; its collective hyper-awareness caused by self-isolation, loneliness, and other pandemic-related woes.
As the artist explains, the exhibition’s title refers to a passage from Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” that describes the deceptive dynamics of disaster. It resonates with him because of the way it portrays “how anxiety/depression creeps in and builds, and then suddenly you’re in the throes of it.”
As poet Dawn Lonsinger observes, “In a moment when the contemporary painting scene is filled with frenetic full-to-bursting canvases and parodic mash-ups, Adam Lupton’s work affectingly interrogates our troubled interiorities in a quieter, fuller way, enlisting us to consider a world drawn between pathos and mythos, wherein we are pulled between our endlessly digressive self-narratives, inherited cultural narratives, and vaunted dreamlike escapes.”
Adam Lupton (b. 1987, Vancouver) received a Bachelor’s in Communication Design from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver Canada (2010), and a Master of Fine Arts from New York Academy of Art in New York City (2016). Previous exhibitions include Cerberus at GR Gallery, New York City (2020), Drawn Together at Unit London (2020), 2020 Vision at Southampton Arts Center, (2020), TELOS at Sugarlift Project Space, New York City (2019), and Beyond Figuration at Cheng Xi Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2018).
SomoS is a non-commercial artist-run art space with an emphasis on interdisciplinary projects, intergenerational community, and diversity, founded in 2013. SomoS’ schedule of exhibitions, performances, seminars, and artist talks is free to the public and aims to spark interest, discussion, cooperation and understanding, as it activates art’s unique positive uniting potential.
WHEN?
Tuesday, March 1st to Saturday, March 12th, 2022
Tuesday – Saturday, 2 – 7 pm and by appointment
COST?
Free entry
WHERE?
SomoS
Kottbusser Damm 95, first floor
10967 Berlin-Kreuzberg
PUBLIC TRANSPORT
U8 – Schönleinstraße
