"The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelling wheel, a first movement, a Sacred Yes." - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Gallery JJ is pleased to present Girl & The Ghost, an exhibition of new and recent works by Adam Handler, recognized for his unique mode of expression through the innocent imagery of ghosts and girl figures. With whimsical charm, Handler captures the essence of overcoming the existential void within finite life. He weaves poignant narratives through ghost and girl figures, employing simple forms and textures reminiscent of children’s drawings. Born in New York, he currently practices across the global art scene, with a notable presence in the United States, Europe, and Asia, firmly establishing himself as one of the most prolific contemporary artists.
Featuring over fifty new paintings, this exhibition offers an extensive overview of Handler's artistic practice and draws significant attention and anticipation from the public. On view includes a selection of his recent focus on the Battle Ground series and the debut of his new Monochromatic Color Band Paintings. The new battle scenes are marked by their daring, mythic, and imaginative qualities drawn from the superhero genre, while the new monochromatic series exhibits dynamic strokes with oil sticks and spray paints, accentuating the vibrancy and abstraction in the work. These elements echo the unrestricted autonomy often found in graffiti. The exhibition also offers a fresh lens on his evolving
body of work, from the recent Ghost, Girl, and Abduction series to flowers and gardens, characterized by heightened textural quality and materiality compared to his earlier work. Within the spontaneous and playful imagery lies a more profound contemplation and witty expression that offer a captivating complexity beyond its innocent appearance. Through the juvenile lens in his work, we anticipate a distinct visual and artistic experience that fosters empathy and inner resonance.
Visually akin to children's drawings, Handler's paintings exude freedom, innocence, and primitiveness, making them hallmark features of his work. These painterly scenes he creates manifest his guileless and intuitive voice, effectively supplanting the inherent anxieties and losses rooted in personal stories with cheerful energy.
For over thirteen years, he has consistently portrayed endearing ghosts, sportive girls, and various flora and fauna. Initially conveyed through monochromatic drawings with a dismal undertone, these characters served as a way for him to intimately represent and find solace in the inevitable losses he once experienced. His narrative subsequently unveiled a fantastical world, where allies such as bats, snakes, foxes, or fish, coexist or engage in battles amid UFOs in cosmos-like backgrounds adorned with flowers or stars. In this fashion, he delves into fleeting moments in life, counterbalancing fear with joyous instances and translating his emotions, rooted in the love of cherished ones and personal memories, into vivid canvases. Beneath the fairytale-like images lies his admiration and reflection on existential life. His work, blending fine art forms with popular culture references, establishes a distinctive formal language in which his defined characters and painterly strokes harmonize. Such a stylistic approach can also be observed within the framework of today's neo-pop art.
Handler's paintings often abound with humorously exaggerated characters: flying UFOs, blushing ghosts, girl figures, and various animals, all depicted in simple, reduced forms. These characters seamlessly blend with their background, a tendency more pronounced in his recent works with thicker textures, simple curves, and vibrant colors. Text elements such as "Make Me Blush" or "Hug Tight" impart a comic strip quality, often echoing narratives found in superhero or science fiction genres with UFOs, abductions, and battle scenes. He employs acrylic, oil sticks, and spray paint to intuitively follow his body movement, turning the painting process into a more physical dance-like ritual. Oil sticks hold particular allure for him as they enhance a uniquely raw and direct sense that arises from interaction with the canvas, allowing for a more unbridled and unpolished mode of expression.
Attributes commonly associated with the naïve forms typical of children’s art include scribbled lines, simplified forms and topics, and enumerative display. His work, seemingly reflecting children’s sensibilities, evokes a sense of nostalgia for one’s youth while hinting at regressive tastes and the playfulness of kidult imagery. These childlike doodles also draw parallels with Art Brut movement championed by Jean Dubuffet.
These characteristics evoking the innocent traits of children are often influenced by personal experiences or social circumstances. A similar trend can be observed in the rejection of maturity through images of comics or toys, sustained interest in popular culture since Pop Art, and the unconstrained world of graffiti. Neo-Pop, which emerged in the 1980s, actively incorporates contemporary popular culture and encompasses various forms of imagery, including characters, fantasies, virtual realities, kitsch, and playful elements in subcultures. The realm of art has broadened since its inclusion of graffiti and graphic novel elements, as well as personal narratives. Notably, Neo-Pop, unlike the Pop Art of the 1950s and 60s, combines fine art forms with popular culture, addressing and resisting the mechanisms of suppression beneath such phenomenon. The works on view reflect his experiences internally while exhibiting the interplay with popular culture or subcultures.
/Memoir, popular sentiment, and fine art form
We all remember our childhood and adolescent years that often come with agitation, insecurity, and uphill battles.
Handler's Ghost character, born from the unbearable anxiety and loss he once faced in his twenties, consistently appears in his work with large eyes and a coy smile, almost implying that life and death are two sides of the same coin. The repeated patterns in the background and short brush strokes also act as a balm to alleviate his fears, much like a form of therapeutic process. Creating patterns without a pre-drawn sketch through a sensory and spontaneous approach is, for him, more of a play than a cerebral execution. The creative setting of his grandfather's woodworking studio, filled with art and books, along with the joyful interactions with supportive grandmother, has ingrained the sensibility of his childhood years within him. To him, such reminisce may be akin to the happiness of Madeleine de Proust, a moment that makes one forget the humble, coincidental, and transient nature of existence, as if it's meant to be forgotten and eventually fade away.
His work seamlessly merges personal experiences with references to American folk art and enduring elements of pop culture, all of which serve as cultural symbols. The characters are drawn from a wide range of influences, spanning from Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream to scenes from horror, science fiction, and superhero movies and comics that have captivated him since childhood. He also conjures a nostalgic atmosphere shaped by lyrical sources, including the poetry of Allen Ginsberg and Pablo Neruda, and the timeless songs of Bob Dylan. When discussing immersion as an artist in the pursuit of something profound, he aspires to rekindle the pure and uninhibited emotions experienced during childhood and adolescence. Such a quest for unadulterated innocence aligns with his fascination with the 1960s hippie culture, a movement that championed a return to nature and the fundamental human yearnings for freedom and love. This inclination manifests visually in his use of floral patterns, resembling the Eastern-inspired clothing, accessories, and prints then embraced by the hippies.
Initially, his quest for such kind of purity in his formal expression can be traced back to his exploration of Art Brut. With a background in art history, he found himself engrossed in the pure creative impulse devoid of any specific intent, leading him to a formal expression characterized by spontaneity, vitality, and naivete. Art Brut, synonymous with Outsider Art, delved into primitive nature that harks back to pre-civilization, similar to the raw quality found in children’s drawings. It explored untamed aspects of art in pursuit of the purity intrinsic to the art form itself.
In Handler’s picture plane, the dominant presence of his girl figures is marked by frontality, accentuated by impassive countenance, flattened yet suggestive portrayal of expansive mouths, and defined busts. This girl figure emerged as a theme when he began studying life drawing in Italy, aiming to introduce a new female representation from traditional Western portraiture. Among many historical references, Willem de Kooning's Woman series, known for its primitive and rugged line forms, served as a notable inspiration, resonating with Handler’s perception of simple forms and the essence found in depictions free from linguistic norms. His early works were also influenced by Basquiat and Bill Traylor, associated with Outsider Art that departed from precise representation, allowing abstract forms to kindle greater imagination. Handler’s works on view – rich in themes of life, death, and the uncanny – interestingly blend subcultural elements in graffiti and neo-pop, modes of Abstract Expressionism, and the creative impulse of Art Brut. This unique visual language, bridging popular culture sentiment with fine art, invites the viewer to explore new horizons.
/Girl and the Ghost
Handler's recent works summon scenes from various superhero narratives. Growing up in the US, the images of superheroes that were popular during his childhood were an integral part of his daily life. Whether it was Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or Sailor Moon and Pokémon from the Japanese comics that were once in trend, he encountered a range of images and stories through toys, comic books, movies, and everyday items like clothing and bags. Memories from his childhood manifest in his works, especially in the new battle series, where he explores the superhuman abilities in these characters that conquer evil. He delves into themes around mortality, race, and the social landscape of New York, reflecting a determination to transcend vanity and strive for self-improvement beyond limitations.
Besides contemporary superheroes, Handler also references battle scenes from the Middle Ages, Jean of Arc, and to Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (1930), where women assume pivotal roles. Pajama Girl, Bloom Girl, and Toki Girl lead the narrative as the protagonists in Hander’s new series, resembling Joan of Arc or his grandmother, Nilda, as if they coincide throughout the multiverse. Nilda and her cat, Misho, often appear in the work, as seen in Nilda and Misho. These recurring characters exhibit his memories and emotions that supported his upbringing, stemming from his study of female figures. His superheroes are his own family including his grandmother, and his wife, who offer unwavering support and inspiration.
Epics often follow the archetypal structure of myths, where heroes venture from the ordinary to conquer challenges and achieve victory. His recent battle series such as Toki Girl in Battle depicts a struggle against adversaries – be it evil, demise, despotism, or idolatry – symbolized by UFOs. This portrays a lion’s will to attain freedom, breaking away from the docile spirit of a camel, as depicted in Nietzsche’s Metamorphosis. Joyful childlike figures against a blooming background, as seen in Finding Our Spot and other recent works, reinforce this idea. According to Nietzsche, the final transformation of the human spirit is represented by the child, symbolizing creative freedom and transcendent vitality, reached after transitioning through the stages of camel and lion. In essence, the child sublimates life into a form of play, a work of art. Keith Haring believed that infancy embodies the purest human experience, while Picasso dedicated his life to painting like a child.
The girl figures embody a new dawn, playfulness, and creative force. They also serve as expressions of beloved ones that allow the artist and the viewers to overcome vanity and mortality. In each of us resides the inner child. By embracing his inner child, Handler's artistic expressions have been made possible. The girl and ghost characters, often used in his art, could act as bridges connecting our everyday lives to eternity. Through the dual nature of darkness and cuteness, his work is remarkable in how they projects the forgotten child into adults and approaches us as a symbolic figure that reveals the hidden fears and defiance within our inner selves and finite lives.
Text | Juyeon Kang, Gallery JJ Director