Marina Adams' 'Coming Thru Strange' at Hionas Gallery Showcases Abstract Painting Innovations

Marina Adams presented her first solo exhibition at Hionas Gallery, titled 'Coming Thru Strange,' from February 21 to March 24, 2013, at 124 Forsyth Street in New York City. The show featured thirteen paintings that ranged in size from over six feet square to a small 12 by 12 inches, displaying vibrant colors, eccentric geometries, and handmade lines. Adams' work blends soft-edged geometry with art informel, avoiding primaries in favor of pastels and nursery hues, while playing with texture and mild tonal dissonances. Her compositions, such as 'Space Embrace' (2011) and '40 Watt Moon' (2010), often include target-like forms that soften modernist hard-edge tropes, with elements like sgraffito and shadowed forms adding depth. The exhibition was held in the gallery's new Lower East Side space, marking its second location after Tribeca. Adams' approach has been compared to artists like Harriet Korman, Robert Mangold, Kenneth Noland, and Ellsworth Kelly, evoking a 'post hard' sensibility similar to Eva Hesse's relationship to Donald Judd. Her paintings challenge pictorial flatness with implied spatial recessions, as seen in 'Spin' (2010), where color segments suggest folding forms. The works' cropped edges extend beyond the canvas, introducing narrative and metaphor into abstract compositions.