The Freedom of Abstraction
Lindsay Adams
Painter Lindsay Adams approaches abstraction as both a formal language and philosophical framework. Her practice is akin to musical composition; each mark functions like a note, colors melding to create harmonies and melodies. Drawing from Black cultural and literary traditions, Lindsay’s luminous canvases explore memory, migration, ancestry, and the many emotional realities that shape the human experience.
In this episode, Elodie sits down with Lindsay to discuss her most recent exhibition SOIL at Sean Kelly Gallery, leaving the traditional workforce to pursue art, living with cerebral palsy, and the role research plays in her practice.
A conversation on the relationship between Blackness and abstraction, disability, and artistic reinvention.
Lindsay Adams is a writer and painter working across traditional mediums. Lindsay received her B.A.s in both International Studies: World Politics and Diplomacy and Spanish from the University of Richmond and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been the recipient of the Helen Frankenthaler Award (2024) and the New Artist Society Merit Award (2023). A 2025-2026 artist-in-residence at the World Trade Center through Silver Art Projects, Lindsay was commissioned to produce a site-specific work for the Obama Presidential Center, which opened in June 2026.
“Having to trust my intuition about balance and form has been both the challenge and the joy of a lifetime.”
Show Notes
Artists Howardina Pindell, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Amanda Williams, Frank Bowling, Mary Lovelace O’Neal, Julie Mehretu, Alma Thomas
The Site of Memory by Toni Morrison
The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture by Courtney Thorsson
Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson
Dark Space: Architecture, Representation, Black Identity by Mario Gooden
Lindsay’s exhibition SOIL at Sean Kelly Gallery