Lisa Adams

Lisa Adams' work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and was represented from 2010-2018 by CB1 Gallery in Los Angeles where she mounted five solo exhibitions. Among other press, her 2013 exhibition Second Life was reviewed in the LA Times by Holly Myers. Her most recent solo exhibition, A Piebald Era ran from January 12 - February 17, 2019 at Garis & Hahn in downtown Los Angeles.

In addition to her studio practice Adams has worked on public art projects which have included the West Valley Branch Library in Reseda, California, the Fire Station No. 64 in Watts, Los Angeles and her most recent public art project is the Chatsworth Station for the Los Angeles Metro Orange Line Extension completed in June 2012.

In 2012 two short films were produced about Adams and her working process. The first is by Eric Minh Swenson titled Toxic Sky and the second is part of a video series by Joseph Santarromana titled The Remembers, episode 3.

She has worked as an independent curator, who in 2000, co-founded Crazy Space, an alternative exhibition space, in Santa Monica, California.

Adams has taught at many reputed art departments throughout the Los Angeles area and abroad, including University of Southern California, Claremont Graduate University, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Ljubljana, Slovenia, UCLA Extension, Otis College of Art & Design and the Santa Monica College of Design, Art and Architecture where she authored a book titled FM*, (Peeps Island Press, 1999) a How To book about painting, based on her teachings between 1997-1999. She has also conducted workshops at the World Design Studios in Gifu City, Japan, the Idyllwild Arts Academy and Summer Arts at California State University, Fresno.

In the 1990s Adams was commission by BMW of North America to paint an ArtCar and has been included in A Day in the Life of the American Woman: How We See Ourselves, Bullfinch Press, 2005.

In 1985 she returned to Los Angeles and continued to pursue her career as a painter. Adams painted abstractly for over a decade, eventually experimenting with unconventional art materials, such as linoleum and caulking. She also learned how to weld and woodwork, incorporating steel and shaped panels as integral elements in her paintings. She thought of her investigations into this hybrid form of artwork as "wall dependent" sculpture. In the early 2000s Adams received a Durfee ARC Grant to pursue experiments in video work.

In 1981, shortly after graduating from the Claremont Graduate University, Adams and artist Craig Kauffman moved to SoHo in New York City. She often referred to that time as her real education, where she was influenced by artists such as Susan Rothenberg and Julian Schnabel. Adams' work was included in group exhibitions in the East Village and SoHo.

Lisa Adams (born 1955) is an American painter who emerged in the mid 1980s. She is best known for her oil paintings of imaginary worlds that address both personal and collective realities. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is in the public collections of Eli Broad, the San Jose Museum of Art, the USC Fisher Museum of Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the Frederick R. Weisman Museum and the Laguna Museum of Art. She lives and works in downtown Los Angeles, California.