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Adam ArbeidAdam has originated a range of his own processes, which he uses in conjunction with traditional disciplines to create alluring and engaging work.
The core of the pieces within this body of work is created as a Florentine marble fresco. Layer by layer coats of a marble composite are applied to the canvas and built up to create a marble base then the piece is sectioned off and further layers are pigmented and applied, textured and polished before paint is applied to the damp or dry base. Minerals, pigments, base and precious metals and other materials are incorporated within his works.
The earliest use of employing crushed marble in this way dates back some 4000 years to the Minoan civilization. In time knowledge of this type of work reached Rome where in the houses of the great and wealthy it became fashionable to ornament the main wall areas with a fine lime, marble putty applied in many thin coats, often coloured and polished to a smooth mirrored finish. The artist would then embellish the area by painting Into the damp surface in the creation of frescoes. With the fall of Rome this form of painting virtually disappeared until its rediscovery in opulent 16th Century Florence where lavish marble frescoes of the Italian Renaissance remain magnificent examples today.
“More recently I have become interested in expanding my range of materials beyond the use of fresco marble and traditional pigments and using crushed glass, fossils, granite, various minerals and metal ore.
I find the experience of developing the use of original tactile substance exciting; utilising ancient physical ingredients in the creation of contemporary work.
I am also interested in exploring the scale and size of the raw material I use as an alternative to pigment or paint. Sourcing, crushing, sieving, washing and grading these materials is time consuming, yet it is fascinating when at the end of the process I have a range of eight or ten grades of the same material, which can be blended with various other materials, in the creation of a new expression of other worldly elements.”
On one level Adam is exploring material as metaphors and our attitudes towards the beauty or banality of these components. On another level the work conveys a number of thought processes or narratives relating to our elemental make-up and its relationship with a deeper content. There are questions about reason, illusion and truth and how we perceive ourselves with reference to life in the physical world. Through his work he also explores the experience of meditation, ideas behind eastern philosophies and more recent western concepts and the potential practical application of these to life.
This new range of work has been inspired by the visions captured through lenses. It’s fascinating to observe the cosmic vistas captured by the Hubble telescope and Cassini space probe, the subterranean environments of our own planet and the imagery captured through microscopy such as diatoms our smallest single cell living beings without which the world would not survive. What may be more fascinating, is although the size-scale of these visions are fantastically unimaginable, some of the visual imagery can be curiously similar.
BUYING WORK
Send Adam an e mail with the title of the piece or pieces you are interested in
you will then receive a reply with the cost ex Postage & Packaging for that piece-pieces.
Bill payment, free bank transfer or cheques are the only acceptable method of payment for the moment. Payments need to clear before dispatch.