BIOGRAPHY
Caley Adams is a New York City based artist whose early life in Maine shaped her perspective on material, texture, and making. Growing up in a coastal community with a strong presence of working artists shaped her relationship to the world and the way she observes and understands beauty. Adams’ current focus is on mixed media and acrylic painting on canvas. She maintains a studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn, which functions as the home base of her artistic practice.
PROCESS
Adams approaches painting as a gradual, evolving act. Her works are built through layers of paint, color, and texture, developed through repeated engagement rather than in a single sitting. She often returns to the same surface, allowing earlier marks to remain present as new ones are added. Paper, fragments of writing, and journal scraps are embedded beneath the paint, creating hidden layers that hold thought and memory.
This way of working extends to how she understands the surface itself. Rather than treating the canvas as a blank beginning, Adams is drawn to surfaces that already carry a sense of history. She often works on reused and found canvases, including those sourced from flea markets and thrift stores, as well as earlier paintings of her own that she revisits and continues to evolve. In both cases, traces of past lives remain embedded beneath the paint. At times, she scratches back into the surface to expose what lies underneath, allowing earlier layers to reenter the present moment.
This approach carries through to her relationship with imperfection. Adams allows unintended marks and irregularities to remain on the canvas rather than reworking them in pursuit of polish. Dust, fibers, and other traces of the studio often become embedded in the surface as the work is made. Rather than trying to control the surface by correcting them, she allows these elements to remain as quiet remnants of place and history. Painting becomes a surface shaped by history and evolution, where what came before and what remains coexist, and where each layer marks another chapter in an ongoing story.
This way of working extends to how she understands the surface itself. Rather than treating the canvas as a blank beginning, Adams is drawn to surfaces that already carry a sense of history. She often works on reused and found canvases, including those sourced from flea markets and thrift stores, as well as earlier paintings of her own that she revisits and continues to evolve. In both cases, traces of past lives remain embedded beneath the paint. At times, she scratches back into the surface to expose what lies underneath, allowing earlier layers to reenter the present moment.
This approach carries through to her relationship with imperfection. Adams allows unintended marks and irregularities to remain on the canvas rather than reworking them in pursuit of polish. Dust, fibers, and other traces of the studio often become embedded in the surface as the work is made. Rather than trying to control the surface by correcting them, she allows these elements to remain as quiet remnants of place and history. Painting becomes a surface shaped by history and evolution, where what came before and what remains coexist, and where each layer marks another chapter in an ongoing story.
THESIS
At its core, Adams’s work considers each painting as a living form shaped by touch, memory, and history. Through layering and revision, the surface holds evidence of what has unfolded on it rather than erasing it. In this way, the painting becomes a form that carries a distinctly human presence, shaped by transformation and evolution.In an increasingly digital and screen-saturated world, her practice is rooted in tactility and physicality. Visible brushstrokes, textured surfaces, embedded materials, and uncorrected marks resist the flatness and immediacy of digitally generated imagery. By embracing imperfection, reuse, and material history, Adams creates work that feels lived in rather than produced, offering viewers a sense of connection, continuity, and shared humanity.