Jamie Adams offers striking oil paintings that “present the artist’s reconstruction of scenes from his father’s youth” in the new show "Blondie Bubba" at Jonathan Levine Projects. The works blend the influences of varying artforms while examining the idea of memory. Adam was featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 40.
American artist Jamie Adams paints the human form with the expertise of an European Old Master. His rendering of musculature and gradation of skin tone is exacting and hyperrealistic. However, there is something askew in the way the necks of his figures sometimes turn too far — as if snapped by an unknown force — and stomachs appear to bulge and contract to unnatural degrees. The distortions to which Adam subjects his characters, and their simultaneously alluring and repelling effects, are similar to the ways in which John Currin manipulates his female figures. The uncanny resemblance is likely no accident, as Adams and Currin are contemporaries of one another. Born within one year of each other, Adams and Currin are both BFA graduates of Carnegie Mellon University.