Gillian Adamson

Amidst

8 – 30 November 2025

OPENING/MEET THE ARTIST Saturday 8 November, 11am – 5pm ALL WELCOME

MEET THE ARTIST Saturday 22 November 11am – 2pm ARTIST TALK 1pm 

Exhaustion starts creeping in. Work. Tidying the house. Making another dinner that my toddler won’t eat. Sharing the road with impossibly angry Ford Ranger drivers. As I race toward the end of the day, I am more on edge. Crashing over that edge feels inevitable. 

In between these waves, my impulse is to reach for my phone and scroll. To embrace mindlessness. But the latest self-promotion, self-optimisation, aura-healing-over-8-10-sessions content only provides me more frustration. I’m undernourished.

Where is the stillness? Where can I be held in quietness? Where do I rest? 

This body of work is a search for stillness. A built structure to hold and support oneself. An effort for personal shelter. Making this work has provided me rest amidst the heaviness of life so near the edge. What remains is incidental. 

Q and A 
How do you choose your subject matter?
My subject matter is always based in the psychological – making art is first and foremost a way of processing emotions for me. I find inspiration in the monotonous day to day.

What techniques do you use?
I’m not a trained painter so I don’t have any special techniques, it’s all intuitive for me in the studio. Trial and error!
 
Who are your influences?
My influences often change, but at the moment I’m influenced by Paul Klee, Etel Adnan and Helen Frankenthaler.
 

Artist Biography
Born in Maitland, 1992, Gillian Adamson is a painter based in Newcastle, NSW. Adamson’s works traverse universal experiences and the idea of the spirit. Her works feel like an intrusion into the most intimate parts of a persons life, but also show the small joys of human existence.

This is her second solo exhibition at Straitjacket.

Shopping Cart
Scroll to Top