“Adams’ finely rendered charcoal drawings offer us convincing portraits. He develops a certain intimacy through their human scale and finely rendered attention to detail, which contribute to the casual accessibility of their “speaking likeness.” . . . Adams directs the reading of these away from simple portraiture by signaling the constructed nature of his imagery with several strategies that interrupt seamless reading. The extreme positioning of the subject at the very bottom of the frame creates an uneasy physical disparity between subject and viewer. The blankness of the background might be an extension of the gallery space, but the reflected image in the sunglasses in each portrait suggests a contradiction; each shows a vital and vibrant scene taking place in the space behind us–clearly a disruption of continuous space. The obvious discontinuity displaces the viewer and unsettles our experience, both of the drawing and of our own space. It is a disappearance and suddenly where we are and what we are is unaccounted for. What looks like simple convention is, instead, an existential proposition.” – Curator Sheryl Conkelton