Adam Colton

Adam Colton (Manchester, 1957) has worked in the Netherlands since the early 80s. In his earliest drawings and sculptures he used his own body as a starting object. He carefully measured it and converted its spatial proportions into a pattern of lines and dots, from which meticulous drawings were created. This pattern was also used in the tooling of large blocks of plaster. By systematically carving sections away, he let forms emerge from the block, thus creating sculptures he calls Carvings. The point of departure is then no longer visible. Colton plays with transformation processes. He goes from three-dimensional to flat and back again, he enlarges, reduces and disorganizes, for as long as it takes until his starting object begin to ‘swing’, as he puts it. In 1987 Colton was awarded the Charlotte van Pallandtprijs voor sculpture and in 1991 he received the Sandbergprijs of the Amsterdam Art Fund.