Bio

Gina Adam's cross-media studio work includes the reuse of antique quilts and broken treaties between the United States and Native American tribes, sculpture, ceramics, painting, printmaking and drawing. She is a descendant of both Indigenous (Ojibwe) and colonial Americans. In 2015 the noted international art critic Lucy Lippard wrote the introduction to her solo exhibition at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, which launched her art career with the Broken Treaty Quilts Series.  In 2017, Adams presented and exhibited at the AIW Conference at Goldsmiths College, University of London, England and was included in Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly, curated by Risa Puleo, which traveled to six museums including the Bemis Center of Contemporary Art. Adams has been selected for such prestigious awards and fellowships as the SARF Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Dartmouth College Artist-in-Residence program (solo exhibit and catalog) and the Kohler Arts Industry/Residency. In 2019 Adams has solo exhibitions at the CU Art Museum, Boulder CO and Edgewood College, Madison, WI in addition to group exhibitions at numerous other museums.

Adams’ work is included in private and public collections including The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; The Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; The Portland Art Museum, Portland, ME; The Hood Museum, Hanover, NH; The Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC; University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS; Emprise Bank, Wichita, KS; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MI; Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS; Great Plains Museum, Lincoln, NE; the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM and North American Native Museum, Zurich, Switzerland.  In recent years Adams' work has been featured in publications including The New Yorker, Hyperallergic, The New York Times, Huffington Post and Art Newspaper among others.

Gina Adams spent her early youth in the San Francisco Bay, and her adolescent and early adult years in Maine. Her formal education includes a BFA from the Maine College of Art and MFA from the University of Kansas. She currently holds a tenure track Assistant Professor position at Emily Carr University of Art & Design in Vancouver, British Columbia. 

Adams is represented by Accola Griefen Fine Art in New York City.

Artist Statement

I am fascinated by stories passed down, both from my own familiar heritage and those told by others. I believe that the passing down of memories is what keeps our genetic heritage alive. I am interested in, and seek out others, who have a similar story to tell, and I immerse myself in their shadows. I do so in order to tell my story more clearly, and doing so helps to clarify what I want the work to say visually.

There is a connection to what the ancient ones taught my ancestors, as this information was passed down generation to generation. I consider my work a spiritual endeavor in which the process of making is a ritual. I decided to learn how to make objects in order to have a better understanding of my ancestors and how I am similar to them. The process of making imbues my identity with an ancestral connection to the sacred and the ritual object.

In storytelling I am moved by a sense of discovery and connection, much of it deeply rooted in place and land. My life's journey is about where the land, peoples, and stories come together. It is my wish that the viewer will add their own experience to my work. Thank you for taking the time for your own discovery, as it brings meaning to the day.

Miigwetch/Thank you.