Adam Chamy is an artist, architect, and writer living and dreaming in Washington, DC. The Palestinian American artist works in a diverse practice reflecting an expressive practice that bridges a wide artistic range of scales from publishing surreal illustrated short parables and storytelling as a tarot reader to painting expressionistic mixed media works and adaptive reuse design work as an architect. His work is expressionistic and observational with otherworldly themes roots in narrative and episodic compositions and storytelling. and His artwork exhibited at the United Nations, Washington National Airport, al-Quds Gallery, and exhibits throughout the Mid-Atlantic.

STATEMENT:
As someone with a complex identity, I am naturally interested in points of similarity and divergence. My work explores themes of unity and contrast both literally, through the layering of traditional media and found materials, and figuratively, through the combining of real and mythical. Like a quilter, I am interested in assembling cohesive visual narratives out of fragmented parts. Through the process of mixing media, I begin to understand the layers within myself.

I layer or collage painted landscapes, portraits of people I observe, or reflections on current events using a variety of media and found objects. The process may start with simple broad brushstrokes but often ends in fragmented expressive scenes where the real meets the abstract.

I am an expressionist artist, but I deeply align to what San Francisco Museum of Modern Art curator Ross Simonini describes as “otherworldly art”. My practice is an intuitive journey uncovering unknown truths about myself and the world around me. It is driven by impulse, dream, psychic tumult, and mystery. I craft myths by attaching lion heads to women’s bodies in a representational style that blends the occult with queer camp. I choose loose ephemeral dream pop lines drawn from glitter, marker, and paint on gossamer craft paper to reflect reflections on the unreliable nature of memory on fuzzy summer days. Medium and style are in service of expression- reality becomes distorted in service of a more honest inner feeling.

By giving form to these meditations, dreams, and observations, each work becomes a diary of the psyche that tries to uncover a hidden meaning. There is an element of alchemy to the process. I seek to visually transform disparate, humdrum observations into magical, metaphysical revelations.