These paintings are abstract pyschological landscapes informed by cartoons, comics, sci-fi, urban layering, and street aesthetics. This body of work builds on a drawing process that combines subconcious doodling with analytical picture construction. My language encompasses an iconography of absurdist motifs. Rays, spurts, pulses, diamonds, blips, buffs, droplets, and letterforms serve as building blocks for larger architectures. Heads and eyes inhabit these worlds as self-referential symbols of viewing and observing, echoing roles of audience and artist. These teeming compositions are reactions to the culture of material accumulation and the inescapable reality of visual saturation.

My current direction in painting uses geometric architecture to build psychological masks and futuristic spaces. Elementary shapes and electric colors vibrate in a structured game of optical pinball. Deep space is illuminated by hovering orbs, gamma rays, and hidden phenomena. Primary shapes, predominantly pointed planes, fracture and expand in a synthetic cosmic Rorschach.

Border Paintings and Other Constructions

Various other Submersion Paintings from 2013-2014.

Surface Treatment
Solo Exhibition

Now we are at a second watershed. This time the loss of innocence is intellectual rather than mechanical. But again there are people who are trying to pretend that it has not taken place. Enormous resistance to the idea of systematic processes of design is coming from people who recognize correctly the importance of intuition, but then make a fetish of it which excludes the possibility of asking reasonable questions.

- Notes on the Synthesis of Form

Surface Treatment examines the chemical and scientific properties of painting. The Submersion paintings are the result of a refined procedure that is a combination of washes, staining, and the gestural application of gesso. The paintings are created in batches of 3-6. Some paintings in each batch succeed, while others fail. The saturated coloration is the result of a focused study of the variations within a duotone palette of turquoise and magenta. The pigments are synthetic with chemical names like pthalocyanine and quinacridone. These colors conceptually relate to both basic printing processes (CMYK) and computer LED screens (RGB). Their final appearance (the “glowing” of the form) is a visual corollary to the universal experience of living a life mediated by backlit iPhone screens and laptops.

The Submersion paintings are also a hybridization of Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting- painting movements strongly connected but historically distinct. The linear march of modernism only recognized clean breaks and categorical division between generations. This left the work of transitional artists out of the historical dialogue. It is now possible and relevant to reexamine and further these neglected yet vital stylistic territories. Despite their gestural nature and deep coloring, the Submersion paintings are based more in a structured analysis and automatic approach than potential association with emotion and expression.

Surface Treatment
Solo Exhibition

Now we are at a second watershed. This time the loss of innocence is intellectual rather than mechanical. But again there are people who are trying to pretend that it has not taken place. Enormous resistance to the idea of systematic processes of design is coming from people who recognize correctly the importance of intuition, but then make a fetish of it which excludes the possibility of asking reasonable questions.

- Notes on the Synthesis of Form

Surface Treatment examines the chemical and scientific properties of painting. The Submersion paintings are the result of a refined procedure that is a combination of washes, staining, and the gestural application of gesso. The paintings are created in batches of 3-6. Some paintings in each batch succeed, while others fail. The saturated coloration is the result of a focused study of the variations within a duotone palette of turquoise and magenta. The pigments are synthetic with chemical names like pthalocyanine and quinacridone. These colors conceptually relate to both basic printing processes (CMYK) and computer LED screens (RGB). Their final appearance (the “glowing” of the form) is a visual corollary to the universal experience of living a life mediated by backlit iPhone screens and laptops.

The Submersion paintings are also a hybridization of Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting- painting movements strongly connected but historically distinct. The linear march of modernism only recognized clean breaks and categorical division between generations. This left the work of transitional artists out of the historical dialogue. It is now possible and relevant to reexamine and further these neglected yet vital stylistic territories. Despite their gestural nature and deep coloring, the Submersion paintings are based more in a structured analysis and automatic approach than potential association with emotion and expression.

Carpet Sample Set

“Carpet Sample Set” imagery was sourced from a single found rug design. Cropped thumbnail screen shots were manipulated and reprinted on actual carpeting. These works examine Modernism’s absorption by mass culture and subsequent loss of meaning as a result of being processed by rampant commercial forces. Mounted to panels and relocated as wall works, they engage Painting history and recognize how art removed from context becomes limited to its decorative qualities. The clear acrylic box frames that encase the carpets signify the way cultural value is created and magnified while simultaneously returning the imagery to the glossy flatness of the screen. The boxes also reference the mechanics of museum display.

From Solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 2014

Solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art

My practice utilizes archetypal abstract painting tropes to reexamine how art has changed under the influence of commerce, reproduction, the internet, and the illuminated screen. Adelsberger presents new works from his ongoing series of Submersion Paintings alongside a new set of four printed carpet works titled “Resampled Carpet Sample Set.”

The Submersion Paintings synthesize Ab-Ex and Color Field through the lens of technology by way of a pseudo-scientific, process-based approach. The process involves a combination of thin washes of acrylic paint and the gestural application of gesso. The resulting surfaces recall x-ray scans or paintings viewed through night vision goggles. The paintings in Night Shades move toward a darker palette, while still miming the luminosity of the backlit screen, acknowledging Painting’s second life as jpeg.

“Resampled Carpet Sample Set” takes as its source the “data” from “Carpet Sample Set”, a series of carpet prints that were created for my recent solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art. In “Carpet Sample Set” cropped thumbnails were lifted from a single found rug design. Manipulated and reprinted on carpeting, these works examine Modernism’s absorption by mass culture and subsequent loss of meaning as a result of being processed by rampant commercial forces. Mounted to panels and relocated as wall works, they engage Painting history and recognize how art removed from context becomes limited to its decorative qualities. The clear acrylic box frames that encase the carpets signify the way cultural value is created and magnified while simultaneously returning the imagery to the glossy flatness of the screen. Now resampled and inverted, the “original” data has become further removed and conflated.

My practice utilizes archetypal abstract painting tropes to reexamine how art has changed under the influence of commerce, reproduction, the internet, and the illuminated screen. The show presents new works from his ongoing series of Submersion Paintings alongside a new set of four printed carpet works titled “Resampled Carpet Sample Set.”
The Submersion Paintings synthesize Ab-Ex and Color Field through the lens of technology by way of a pseudo-scientific, process-based approach. The process involves a combination of thin washes of acrylic paint and the gestural application of gesso. The resulting surfaces recall x-ray scans or paintings viewed through night vision goggles. The paintings in Night Shades move toward a darker palette, while still miming the luminosity of the backlit screen, acknowledging Painting’s second life as jpeg.
“Resampled Carpet Sample Set” takes as its source the “data” from “Carpet Sample Set”, a series of carpet prints that were created for my recent solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art. In “Carpet Sample Set” cropped thumbnails were lifted from a single found rug design. Manipulated and reprinted on carpeting, these works examine Modernism’s absorption by mass culture and subsequent loss of meaning as a result of being processed by rampant commercial forces. Mounted to panels and relocated as wall works, they engage Painting history and recognize how art removed from context becomes limited to its decorative qualities. The clear acrylic box frames that encase the carpets signify the way cultural value is created and magnified while simultaneously returning the imagery to the glossy flatness of the screen. Now resampled and inverted, the “original” data has become further removed and conflated.