Meet Adam MacArthur | Chicago based Artist and Educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Adam MacArthur and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Adam, why did you pursue a creative career?
I was working a very regular and boring 9-5 office job and painting on the side whenever I was home. After about a year or 2 of that, it became very clear that I was investing most of my time and energy towards my artistic practice than my career at that time. I would do art history research at the office all day and then paint all night. It gave me a sense of possibility and achievement that I hadn’t gotten from anything else. Rather than putting my art on the back burner I decided to make it the focal point of my life and career path. Around this time I sought out and met very key mentors that showed me how being an artist could turn in to a real career and life path.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I create paintings that are depictions of temporal phenomena in nature through means of gestural abstraction in paint. Painterly gestures become depictions of wind and light as it activates natural spaces. By enlarging these phenomena to a focal point, The paintings draw attention to the forces that create natural environments and the internal associations that come with them.

This is a relatively new approach that I have been working on for a few years to get it just the way that I want, so I am excited about this new language of abstraction that I made and the possibilities that can come out of it.

This method of painting took a long time to develop and had lots of false starts and dead ends. I read a lot about art history and theory to gain a better understanding of what I wanted to do with my work and then do the physical painting work to figure out how to execute these ideas. Through out this process I had excellent teachers and friends that were important sounding boards for ideas and critical viewers. I had to learn how to accept the work that I wasn’t satisfied with and learn from the process, instead of being caught up in the result.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I am a huge museum nerd. My absolute favorite spot in the city is the Art Institute of Chicago. I know all of the galleries and love talking through the paintings there. I frequent many of the local art galleries as well, some of my favorites are, Wrightwood 659, Patron Gallery and Volume Gallery.

I live in the Logan Square neighborhood, so thats where most of my free time is spent. It is a cool artsy neighborhood with a lot of green spaces, there is a massive farmers market every Sunday when its nice out and everyone shows up and just hangs out. I go on walks with my cat through the neighborhood and the community gardens. We are kind of local celebrities because he is a cat that walks on a leash.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
To my family for supporting me through everything. They have always backed me even when things seemed hard to reach. They embraced my art, my life, and me. None of this would have been possible without that love and support.

Website: https://www.amacarthurart.com/

Instagram: @a.macarthur_art