David: Jessica Jackson Hutchins and Ryan McLaughlin
September 26–November 2, 2019

Adams and Ollman is excited to announce David, an exhibition with Jessica Jackson Hutchins and Ryan McLaughlin to open the 2019—2020 season and inaugurate the gallery’s new space at 418 NW 8th Avenue in Portland, Oregon. David, opening Thursday, September 26 and on view through November 2, will feature new ceramic sculptures by Jessica Jackson Hutchins alongside recent paintings by Ryan McLaughlin.

Jessica Jackson Hutchins’ ongoing engagement with materials and forms is tactile and intimate. Through touch and accretion, Hutchins celebrates the meaning and emotion of relationships, time, and language. Composed of an array of everyday objects, some found, some personal, the artist’s works are accumulations of quotidian life and mundane rituals transformed into reverential objects that are as idiosyncratic as they are familiar. Well-known for her sculptures that often situate ceramic forms and vessels on found and dissected domestic objects such as a table, piano, sofa, or cushion, Hutchins continues to explore and push materials, media, and meaning.

In this new body of work, Hutchins directly references the human form, one that is tangled, introspective, and strong. The energy found in the work is created formally with oppositions—of found and made, gestural and linguistic, soft and hard edges—creating palpable tensions and deeply felt meaning. The works are as painterly as they are sculptural, inviting the viewer to consider simultaneously the surface and the structure, the exterior and interior. With turbulent strokes of color in various slips and glazes, Hutchins moves seamlessly between the impulse to leave a mark and the rich lineage of 20th century women artists who have invoked the figure as a site of meaning, desire, and consumption. The works vibrate with references to Abstract Expressionism, performance, architecture, and fragmented bodies, each building an emotional intensity founded upon the clash of formal principles and the chaos of creation.

On view with Hutchins’ works will be new paintings by Ryan McLaughlin that continue his conflation of subjective gestures with common signifiers. McLaughlin deploys an idiosyncratic cast of painterly techniques to build his compositions, each straddling borders of traditional legibility. Most present fragmented words, crumbled pictograms, and dusty painterly fields. Others sample from realms of health food branding and sport design as well as histories of landscape and still life painting. Simultaneously binding abstract and procedural thought, and relating to conventional signage systems that help us interpret and navigate our world, the works are both form and content.

The two-person exhibition will be the first in Adams and Ollman’s new location at 418 NW 8th Avenue in Portland, Oregon. Designed by Jeff Stern of In Situ Architecture, the new space triples the gallery’s footprint and is comprised of a large main exhibition space in addition to a second gallery. The new venue will allow the realization of more ambitious projects with the gallery’s artists, a broader range of programming, and unique collaborations with other galleries near and far.

installation view: David


installation view: David


installation view: David

installation view: David

installation view: David


installation view: David


installation view: David


Jessica Jackson Hutchins
A Certain Hill, 2019
glazed ceramic, wooden chair, chalk
45h x 20 1/4w x 20 1/2d in
114.30h x 51.44w x 52.07d cm
JJH.16949


Jessica Jackson Hutchins
A Certain Hill, 2019
glazed ceramic, wooden chair, chalk
45h x 20 1/4w x 20 1/2d in
114.30h x 51.44w x 52.07d cm
JJH.16949


Jessica Jackson Hutchins
Wild Core, 2019
glazed ceramic, fused glass, plastic chair
33h x 26w x 33d in
83.82h x 66.04w x 83.82d cm
JJH.16950



Jessica Jackson Hutchins
The Poet, 2019
glazed ceramic, fiberglass chair, spraypaint
55h x 19w x 17 1/2d in
139.70h x 48.26w x 44.45d cm
JJH.16952



Jessica Jackson Hutchins
Winter Sun on Virginia Hill, 2019
glazed ceramic
22 1/2h x 13w x 10d in
57.15h x 33.02w x 25.40d cm
JJH.16953


Jessica Jackson Hutchins
Grass, 2019
glazed ceramic, flashe on board
10h x 8 1/2w x 2d in
25.40h x 21.59w x 5.08d cm
JJH.16955


Jessica Jackson Hutchins
Last Chapter, 2019
glazed ceramic, flashe on board
14h x 11w x 3 1/2d in
35.56h x 27.94w x 8.89d cm
JJH.16956


Jessica Jackson Hutchins
Cloud, 2019
glazed ceramic, fused glass
15h x 12w x 3d in
38.10h x 30.48w x 7.62d cm
JJH.16993


Ryan McLaughlin
Weste, 2019
oil on canvas on panel
24h x 43w in
60.96h x 109.22w cm
RM201903


Ryan McLaughlin
Old Crow, 2019
oil on panel
10h x 16w in
25.40h x 40.64w cm
RM201904


Ryan McLaughlin
Taiga, 2019
oil on linen on panel
22 1/4h x 30w in
56.52h x 76.20w cm
RM201905


Ryan McLaughlin
World Sport, 2019
oil on canvas on panel
33h x 47w in
83.82h x 119.38w cm
RM201906


Ryan McLaughlin
ORL, 2019
oil on linen on panel
12 1/16h x 16 1/2w in
30.64h x 41.91w cm
RM201907