S-CHANF .- Von Bartha is presenting a solo exhibition of new work by American artist Marina Adams in the gallery’s S-chanf space, 8 July – 25 September 2021. Deep Breathing is Adams’ first solo exhibition at the S-chanf gallery and features three large paintings created in 2021. The works in Deep Breathing expand on an earlier series of works created in collaboration with the poet Norma Cole.

Deep Breathing showcases three new acrylic paintings on linen canvas: Mountain Love, Manhattan and the Moon and Crow Dance. Measuring almost 2 metres in size (173cm x 147cm), the large works centre around the idea of space, color, and depth. Breathwork informs Adams’ strong belief in the advertent nature of impactful painting—there is a lively animation to her paintings, similar to the fluidness of motion a yogi demonstrates; moving with an acquired ease that all begins with the initial inhale. For Adams, “great paintings have great breath,” a notion which references Picasso’s statement on Matisse—that he had “big lungs” acknowledging the great sense of air, light and space in his color. The title of the show Deep Breathing has gained a deeper resonance in the last year, as the words “I can’t breathe” gained further significance during the Black Lives Matter protests which shook the world.

The colours and forms of the works in Deep Breathing echo and expand upon an earlier series of works on paper by Adams created for Actualities (2015), a publication made in collaboration with poet Norma Cole. In the publication, which considers fragmentation, transformation, love and precarity, Adams echoes the language of Cole’s poems with her own visual language of lines, colours and shapes. Here the importance of breath in Adams’ work is again evident as a vehicle to illustrate poetry – a spoken artform which is shaped by breath.Based between New York and Parma in northern Italy, Marina Adams is known for her dynamic, abstract works which explore colour, form and movement, featuring vibrantly coloured interlocking shapes and lines. Often large in scale, Adams’ practice draws inspiration from a range of subjects including architecture, ceramic and textiles, from the richly patterned rugs of Morocco to the Moorish tiles found in the Alhambra Palace in Spain.

Marina Adams (b.1960) is a painter based in NYC, Bridgehampton, NY and Parma Italy. She earned degrees from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA and Columbia University, New York, NY. Upcoming and current solo exhibitions include Wild Is Its Own Way, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (September 2021) and Works on Paper (2016-2021), Stephen Friedman Gallery (June 2021). Recent solo exhibitions include The Journal Gallery, New York, NY (March 2021); FOCUS: Marina Adams, The Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (November 2020); Anemones at Salon 94 Bowery, NYC, which was accompanied by her monograph (2019); and The Secret of Greek Grammar at Larsen Warner Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden. Current group exhibitions include Affinities for Abstraction: Artists on Eastern Long Island 1950 to 2020, Parrish Art Museum, NY; and Shapes, Alexander Berggruen, NYC. Adams is a 2016 recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, and received the 2018 Award of Merit Medal for Painting from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.