Adams and Ollman
Seattle Art Fair 2017

Adams and Ollman presents new works by West Coast artists Ellen Lesperance, Dino Matt and Marlon Mullen with booth display by designer Jason Rens.

Lesperance (b. 1971, lives and works in Portland, OR) is best known for her paintings that are inspired by hand-knit sweaters worn by women involved in protests, sit-ins, demonstrations and civil disobedience. Since 2007, she has been researching garments used as Creative Direct Action, and has been specifically involved in archiving knit examples of these garments from the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in Berkshire, England (1981-1999). Adams and Ollman will feature new works that incorporate text for the first time and that are inspired by this touchstone event.

Adams and Ollman will give a first look to the work of ceramicist Dino Matt (b.1987, lives and works in Portland, OR) whose hand-built vessels have a contemporary archaeology aesthetic and relate to the artist’s broader interests in collecting and archiving. Made from bits and pieces of stoneware glazed in colors inspired by the southwest desert, the works are accumulations of hundreds of gestures or fragments, reminiscent of brushwork in an abstract painting or stratified landscape.

In Marlon Mullen's (b. 1963, lives and works in Richmond, CA) paintings, advertisements, articles and reproductions of artworks are distilled, transformed and edited, often beyond recognition, into a fascinating composition of dominant gestures and interlocking forms rendered in swirls of bold and tactile paint. While they withhold vital information, the paintings have a perseverance of legibility as they toggle between representation and abstraction or isolate a particularly poetic grouping of words. On view will be a group of new works from the studio that have diverse references, from Titian to Marina Abramovic.

Inspired by topography from architectural models, specifically ones for the Watzek house designed by renowned architect John Yeon, designer Jason Rens (b. 1978, lives and works in Portland, OR) uses the curves and lines depicting this PNW masterpiece's landscape to create a shelf and table for the Adams and Ollman booth at the Seattle Art Fair.