PAINTING
Adam Straus is known for his majestic and luminous depictions of the sublime in his paintings, which are often saturated with a deep concern about social and environmental issues. His penetrating dark humor can transport the viewer to post-apocalyptic worlds and often offers a wry observation on how humans have altered the natural landscape. A monograph on his work was published by Gli Ori, Italy, in 2016, with an essay by author and critic Amei Wallach who writes that “The tradition into which Straus dared to tread … was sorely in need of reanimation. His disruptions in the years since have unsettled received assumptions as much through dark humor and bravura painting as through offering a reassessment of what it means to paint the beauty of nature in ugly times. It is important to him that his paintings are accessible… But that is only the first, skin-deep level, and it is animated by compound subterranean layers of passionate conviction, cosmic yearning, and comedy.” Work by Adam Straus is numerous museum collections including the Parrish Art Museum, Bridgehampton, NY; List Visual Center, M.I.T., Cambridge, MA; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; The Art Museum at F.I.U., Miami, FL; Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA; Tufts University Art Gallery, Somerville, MA; and the William College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA, among others. Straus lives and works in Riverhead, NY.
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Faculty
Adam Straus
