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Tracey Adams

Tracey Adams is an American abstract painter and printmaker. Her artworks reflect a strong interest in musical patterns, rhythms, lyrical compositional elements and what she calls a sense of performance.  She lives and works in Carmel, California.

Adams works on panel and paper, using a mixture of paint, encaustic and graphite as well as elements of monotype and collage. Planning and intuition equally inform her process. Often, she will begin a work or a series from the perspective of an exact mathematical formula, planning compositional elements in advance. Other times she will begin with a grid structure then work within that structure, incorporating organic, performative gestures and expressive brushwork. Regardless where a particular work begins, Adams engages in an open, exploratory process that allows the work to evolve. Often the finished result is a mixture of her original idea and her instinct, creating a composition that captures the essence of the harmony of mind and emotion.

Her background in music is what most inspires Tracey Adams. Her works draw heavily on musical structure, rhythm and composition. Her color choices speak to her personal surroundings living on a peninsula near Monterrey in central California. The light off of the water, the muting capacity of the fog, the colors of the setting sun and the palette of the lush local flora all find their way into her work. While a graduate student, Adams was able to work often with the composer and artist John Cage, who profoundly influenced her progress. She has said that her work strives to capture the calmness and beauty of an environment she would like to be in herself.

Adams has exhibited extensively in solo and group shows throughout the United States and occasionally in Europe. Work by Adams is part of the permanent collections of several museums and multiple corporate collections.