Originally trained as a musician, Tracey Adams completed her master’s degree at the New England Conservatory of Music in 1980; concurrently, she studied painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She has had solo shows at the Monterey Museum of Art, the Fresno Museum of Art, and the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. In 2003, Adams was invited to exhibit at the Andy Warhol Museum in Medzilaborce, Slovak Republic, a project supported by artist’s grants from the US Department of State and the Ministry of Culture. She is also a recipient of an Artist’s Grant from the Community Foundation of the Monterey Peninsula. Adams was recently awarded a 2015 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Her work is featured in Authentic Visual Voices (Catherine Nash, 2013) and Embracing Encaustic (Linda Womack, 2015). In 2014, Adams’ work was included in “The Circle Game” at the Tucson Art Museum, “Swept Away,” at the Hunterdon Museum of Art in Clinton, NJ and in “SHIFT: Five Decades of California Contemporary Painting” at the Monterey Museum of Art. She was invited to be the 2014 Visual Artist for the Music at Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute in Atherton, CA. Adams’ work is included in the collections of the Bakersfield Art Museum, the Crocker Museum, the Hunterdon Art Museum, the Monterey Museum of Art, the Fresno Art Museum, the Tucson Art Museum, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
Solo Exhibitions
2018
Primordial Soup San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA (Curator: Cathy Kimball)
2016
Cause and Effect: Mapping a Dialogue Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
2014
Patterns of Infinity Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto and Winfield Gallery, Carmel
Selected Group Exhibitions
2017
Storied Paper Carl Cherry Center for the Arts Carmel, CA (Curator: Robert Reese)
Brand Spanking Blue Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
Work X 5 Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA
Art on Paper NY, K. Imperial Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
2016
PAPER: burned, cut, folded and stitched Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA (Curator: Tracey Adams)
Art on Paper K. Imperial Fine Art, NYC, NY
In the Abstract Anne Loucks Gallery, Glencoe, IL
24th Annual Group Exhibition Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA
2015
Between The Spaces, Butters Gallery, Portland, OR (Curator: Elise Wagner)
Art on Paper, K. Imperial Fine Art, NYC, NY
ArtHamptons, Bruce Lurie Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Adaptations, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA
eXXpectations, Cornell Museum of Art, DelrayBeach, FL (Curator: Melanie Johanson)
Momentum Transferred, Bruce Lurie Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2014
Swept Away: Translucence, Transparence, Transcendence in Contemporary Encaustic Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, NJ
SHIFT: Five Decades of Contemporary California Painting Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey
The Circle Game Tucson Art Museum, Tucson
Outside/In K. Imperial Fine Art, San Francisco
Awards/Honors
2015
Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant
2014
Visual Artist, Music at Menlo Chamber Music Festival & Institute, Atherton, CA
Museum Collections
Bakersfield Museum of Art, Bakersfield
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento
Fresno Museum of Art, Fresno
Hunterdon Art Museum, Hunterdon, NJ
New Museum of Los Gatos, Los Gatos, CA
Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey
Museum of Contemporary Art, Hot Springs, AR
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara
Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson
Publications
Catalogs
2014
Swept Away: Translucence, Transparence,Transcendence in Contemporary Encaustic, Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, NJ
Patterns of Infinity, Paintings of Tracey Adams, Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto.
Ninth Annual Encaustic Invitational, Conrad Wilde Gallery, Tucson.
Books
2015
Linda Womack. Embracing Encaustic: Learning to Paint with Beeswax, Vol. III
Interviews/Presentations
2017
Tracey Adams. “Cut and Paste”, Professional Artist Magazine, January
2016
Ora Sorensen. “Artists Paint with Wax.” Professional Artist Magazine, November
Kathryn Markel, “In Conversation with Tracey Adams,” www.markelfinearts.com, September
Elise Morris, “The Studio Work blog”, March 22
2014
Visual Artist, Music at Menlo Chamber Music Festival & Institute, Atherton, CA, July-August.
Education
1979-1981
Graduate work in printmaking, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
1980
MM, New England Conservatory of Music, Boston
1978
BA, Mount St. Mary’s College, Los Angeles
My interest in music is especially present both in terms of the visual intervals and patterns that appear in my work; physical engagement and a sense of performance is always part of my studio practice.
I am drawn to intersections: ideas that might seem to be at opposite ends of a continuum, like the organic and the geometric, are brought together in my work.
My works attempt to create environments that I want to find in myself: they represent internal worlds that I am attempting to externalize. My pieces are still, and are meant to express a form of serenity. However beauty is expressed, however it is felt, has to do with the feeling of calm, inside and out.
Each work and each series is a kind of diary of my explorations. My ideas evolve as I apply my intellect, my sense of order and my sense of play to the images and materials at hand. I do start with a kernel of an idea in mind, but somewhere between intention and chance I always find new energies and new directions.