WHEN : Until 16th June
WHERE : Jan Murphy Gallery
Adam Lester’s work comes from a need to make sense of cultural ’noise’. Travels in Greece and Asia, and an interlude in the hippy north of New South Wales, have laid the groundwork for this artist’s penetrating perception of the contemporary milieu. Steering a course between the political and the aesthetic, Lester appropriates from the plethora of sensorium generated by the metropolis. Dualities have always fascinated him, and his titles often hint at contra interpretations. Pictorially words function both as form and meaning, creating a kind of frisson between an image’s layers. Vibrant colours and iconic signs often jostle uneasily together to produce highly kinetic surfaces.
Employing a stylistic vocabulary inherited from ready-made and pop art forms, the artist juxtaposes graphic art modes and gestural marks. Lester brings his face-off between high art and everyday culture to edgy resolution.
Lester completed his Bachelor of Visual Arts degree in 2002, although his participation in group exhibitions in Greece and northern New South Wales predates his formal training by several years. He continues with regular group and solo shows. Since graduation, Lester has taken first prize in the Bentley Art Prize, twice been highly commended in the Southern Cross Art Prize, and twice selected for inclusion in the Churchie Emerging Art Prize exhibition.
Text – Jan Murphy Gallery, 2012
Image – Adam Lester, Transcontinental Beauties 1932-1962, 2011
