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Yura Adams makes paintings and sculpture known for experimentation as she explores materials and her interaction with nature. She is currently preparing for her second solo show with Olympia in New York City opening May, 2025. Her first solo show at Olympia, fall of 2022, titled “Warm, Dark and Roaring” brought her new recognition which increased with her large exhibition of sculpture at Turley Gallery in Hudson, New York. and spring of 2023. Adams has shown extensively in both group and solo shows throughout the Hudson Valley with LABspace, John Davis Gallery of Hudson, New York and other venues including Opalka Gallery in Albany, New York. Early career, Adams exhibited installation, performance, and photography, in venues such as Just Above Midtown, City Gallery, New Museum, Experimental Intermedia, Franklin Furnace, LACE, and FOTO Gallery. Her awards include the Tree of Life Foundation (2023), Peter S. Reed Foundation (by nomination, 2022), Drawing Center Viewing Program (2021), Pollock-Krasner Grant (2019), and Martha Boschen Porter Fund, Berkshire Taconic Foundation (2017) and New Genres, Individual Artist Grant from the NEA (1985). Both her BFA and MFA were earned at the San Francisco Art Institute IN 1975 and 1980. She paints in an industrial building on a farm in Western Massachusetts and just returned from the Chautauqua Visual Arts Residency summer of 2024.
Published on April 1st, 2025. Artist responses collected in months previous.
Talk about some of the logistics of your art practice. What systems do you have in place to help streamline your workflows?
My starting point for streamlining a workflow is a reset of the area where I will be working (and of my mind too). The physical elements are a clean work area, supplies ready, brushes laid out, work table ready, music selected, reference materials surveyed. The rest of my studio can get chaotic and full of art and supplies, but my immediate work station is organized. This system helps me reconnect to where I was the day before and take on painting in my own time zone.
What is some advice for someone who does not have any experience who would like to pursue a career like yours?
Dear artist-to-be, pay attention to your inner cog. If this driver isn’t there, and you are not putting in studio time, consider another way to satisfy the desire to be in the art world. Know that success in school is brief and life is long. Know that there will be a lot of unsupported time in the studio but resiliency can be developed. What is resiliency? Grit, perseverance, and courage. It is a great way to develop character.
What was the lowest point in your art career and how did you overcome those adversities?
The lowest point in my art career was when I moved out of New York and gave up my art for ten years in order to run a business and have two babies. I loved my children without end, but not making art made me miserable. When I was able to extricate myself from the business and a failed relationship, I vowed to do what it took to make my work again. It was that burning desire to get out of a deep depression that pushed me, more than any other tip I can share here.
How did you come into the type of artwork you are doing now?
I came to the type of artwork that I am doing now when I moved to a studio surrounded by nature and nature took over my mind. At the same time, I got less interested in humanity. Being bombarded by an internet filled with selfie culture did it. I pursue what can happen when I pursue the deeper and unpredictable parts of artmaking. This sounds mystical, maybe it is, but it is what drives me and therefore, my work.
What was an epiphany in your art practice that took you to the next level?
The epiphany in my art practice that has taken me to the next level is not an aha moment, but rather a series of sustained, rather boring days of packing lunch for the studio, walking down the farm road, entering my she-cave, turning on the lights, setting up my work station and then working. At the end of the day, usually as it gets dark, I reverse and go home to rest my mind. The epiphany is a result of this additive process; a culmination of aha moments that occur in small decisions I make in the work. Try this shape, could it be this color, no not that one. A million ideas to try out, to experiment with and a million ideas to tamp down in order to achieve clarity.
Talk about some of the logistics of your art practice. What systems do you have in place to help streamline your workflows?
My starting point for streamlining a workflow is a reset of the area where I will be working (and of my mind too). The physical elements are a clean work area, supplies ready, brushes laid out, work table ready, music selected, reference materials surveyed. The rest of my studio can get chaotic and full of art and supplies, but my immediate work station is organized. This system helps me reconnect to where I was the day before and take on painting in my own time zone.
What is some advice for someone who does not have any experience who would like to pursue a career like yours?
Dear artist-to-be, pay attention to your inner cog. If this driver isn’t there, and you are not putting in studio time, consider another way to satisfy the desire to be in the art world. Know that success in school is brief and life is long. Know that there will be a lot of unsupported time in the studio but resiliency can be developed. What is resiliency? Grit, perseverance, and courage. It is a great way to develop character.
What was the lowest point in your art career and how did you overcome those adversities?
The lowest point in my art career was when I moved out of New York and gave up my art for ten years in order to run a business and have two babies. I loved my children without end, but not making art made me miserable. When I was able to extricate myself from the business and a failed relationship, I vowed to do what it took to make my work again. It was that burning desire to get out of a deep depression that pushed me, more than any other tip I can share here.
How did you come into the type of artwork you are doing now?
I came to the type of artwork that I am doing now when I moved to a studio surrounded by nature and nature took over my mind. At the same time, I got less interested in humanity. Being bombarded by an internet filled with selfie culture did it. I pursue what can happen when I pursue the deeper and unpredictable parts of artmaking. This sounds mystical, maybe it is, but it is what drives me and therefore, my work.
What was an epiphany in your art practice that took you to the next level?
The epiphany in my art practice that has taken me to the next level is not an aha moment, but rather a series of sustained, rather boring days of packing lunch for the studio, walking down the farm road, entering my she-cave, turning on the lights, setting up my work station and then working. At the end of the day, usually as it gets dark, I reverse and go home to rest my mind. The epiphany is a result of this additive process; a culmination of aha moments that occur in small decisions I make in the work. Try this shape, could it be this color, no not that one. A million ideas to try out, to experiment with and a million ideas to tamp down in order to achieve clarity.
Find Yura Adams on Instagram
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