Artist Spotlight: Adam Lupton
Lives & Works In: Brooklyn, NY (originally from Vancouver, BC)
Occupation: Making paintings and handling other people's paintings
On the Clock: Breakfast. Tea. Music on. Paint. Food. Paint. Food. Read. Bed. All of that is interspersed with swearing, sweating, and the subway.
Your Art Weekend: Finding a way to avoid the subway, which normally involves books and my studio. In turn I try to do galleries and bars and writing during the week.
Album: Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan.
Film: That's always an issue.
Artist: I have an affinity for those Northern Europeans: Borremans, Rauch et al.
Book: Right now I'm reading The Trial by Franz Kafka.
Eats: I am held together by quinoa and kale.
Latest Purchase: A flight back to Vancouver for my sister's wedding.
Guilty Pleasure: Giant portions of ice cream, but I don't feel guilty about that.
Grade in art class: I didn't fail.
36 hours: Can I teleport? If I can I'd just go around Europe looking at art and eating food and drinking on beaches and mountaintops and gorging myself on gelato. If I'm stuck in New York, I'll go to the studio and then gorge on gelato.
Your work has a philosophical quality that reflects aspects of human nature. What inspired you to take that direction with your art?
I've always had an affinity for people and human-ness, but I guess it focused when I had a mental break and really had to hone in on my internal states, anxieties, and OCD. I love learning, so I not only delved into psychological and neurological readings and underpinnings of what it all is, but more spiritual and mindful understandings as well. Maybe when so many overlapping elements emerge between the two, they verge into a philosophical side?
Your new series, "Ego Sketches," diverges aesthetically from your earlier work. Why did you opt to take this new direction and do you think you will continue with it?
It was a step away from the visual side of what I was doing, but it still works into the same ideas. I needed a different avenue to talk about what I wanted to feel, and this series was bred out of it. I needed something to rupture - we'll see where it leads.