Shining Through | Adam Colton

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition Shining Through by Adam Colton. Opening on Saturday 11 October, the exhibition will run through 15 November. Colton, known for his organically shaped sculptures, will show a number of new sculptures and works on paper.

Colton’s career began in the early 1980s with white plaster constructions based on his own leg. His work developed through geometric stone and wood carvings toward organically shaped sculptures in the synthetic material polyurethane foam, which he gave a natural appearance by sanding and painting them in an off-white hue. He also cast several of these forms in aluminium. At the same time, he remains deeply engaged with fundamental sculptural principles such as volume, space, and weight.

The exhibition features a new series of plaster sculptures alongside several new works on paper. The practice of drawing forms the foundation of all his work. The developmental process from the initial drawing to a three-dimensional object is essential to the final outcome. In this exhibition, he presents a variety of drawing series in which he experiments with diverse materials, such as silver paint and iridescent paper, reflecting light and space.

Adam Colton was born in 1957 in Manchester (UK). He has lived and worked in the Netherlands since 1981. Following his studies at Ateliers 63 in Haarlem, he had his first solo exhibition at Art & Project in Amsterdam in 1983. He has been represented by Slewe Gallery since 2002; this will be his sixth solo exhibition with the gallery. Over the years, he has held numerous museum exhibitions across the Netherlands, including at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Commanderie van St. Jan in Nijmegen, Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede, and Kunstmuseum Den Haag. In 2009, his exhibition Love Arises from the Foam opened at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. In the winter of 2013/2014, he had a solo exhibition of his work, Carvings and Bones, at Museum Kröller-Müller in Otterlo. Around the same time, Slewe Gallery published a catalogue spanning nearly 25 years of his work, featuring essays by Penelope Curtis, Director of Tate Britain in London, and private collector Anno Lampe.