20 August – 20 September 2014
An exhibition of new mezzotint prints by Chris Adams.
Born in 1942, Chris Adams grew up in England and went to universities in London and Oxford. He was introduced to print making in 1987, through some inspiring teaching from Jill Macintosh, Kate Coolahan and Basia Smolnicki. In 1994, under John Drawbridge, Chris was converted to the Mezzotint faith. He is attracted to the velvety darkness of the mezzotint and its essential quality of mystery and stillness.
“These mezzotints celebrate the landscape of Wellington, a meeting-place of a geologically active land with the dramatic seas and skies of Cook Strait. Emigrants to this New World have radically modified the land, revealing its innate muscularity and sensual forms, but also leaving poignant remnants of the forest and their own strange monuments to the past – the spirit of place. The mezzotints are arranged to accompany an imagined emigrant (the Gerontius of one print) through arrival, a new life’s challenges and on departure, repose.”
