Chuma Adam
Chuma Adam (b. 2001) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Johannesburg, currently completing her Fine Arts degree at the University of Witwatersrand. Her practice spans painting, printmaking, textiles, sculpture, and drawing, with her work deeply influenced by Édouard Glissant’s theory of opacity from Poetics of Relation. Adam's art challenges notions of visibility and self-actualization within the context of Blackness and womanhood, exploring the complexities of identity through abstraction.
Her process is heavily informed by her research into Pan-African philosophers and thinkers, and she often incorporates materials like sand and soil from her mother's home into her earth-toned paintings. This tactile element, combined with repetitive mark-making, serves a form of documentation and reflection on the nuanced emotional landscape of Blackness. Chuma's work evokes a sense of vulnerability and introspection, offering immersive visual experiences that speak to the intangible and evolving aspects of identity.
Chuma takes into great consideration her research which is led by prolifics. Chuma mainly works through these thoughts, emotions, and conceptual processes through the abstraction of the intangible complexities of navigating one’s self. In trying to disassemble the complexities of her Blackness and womanhood, Chuma introduces texture to her paintings by mixing sand and soil from her mother’s home into her earth-toned paintings and through repetitive mark making which functions as a form of documentation of her cosmic quest. Chuma does this in an attempt to excavate a multiplex of complex feelings, and ideologies surrounding Blackness and womanhood while paying homage to the genesis of African art. Chuma maintains and contains these intense feelings with her emotive, and sometimes controlled brushstrokes within these familiar and organic shapes, creating an immersive and introspective viewing experience.ÂChuma has completed and graduated with a Honours degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand (2024) and was shortlisted for the WITS Young Artist Award (2022, 2023).
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- Chuma Adamuntitled; otherwise Blackness as self-actualization (Autumn Rhythm Number 03)R 9,350.00 ex. vat
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