Adam Higgins
Adam Higgins (b. 1989, Huntington Beach, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles.
Adam Higgins' paintings begin with simple premises. A painting of a caesar salad – vivid romaine, attractively tossed, strewn with pearlescent dressing – is an easy invitation. But once inside, we find there’s nowhere to go, no room behind the roughage. The surface is where the action is, and where matters go from simple to very complicated. Higgins’ surfaces require slow looking. At close range, they break down into a post-impressionist search for true chroma, for color as the key to undoing and reassembling perception. At mid-range, it is all about photography; camera obscura techniques used in Dutch still life meets glossy magazine spreads. Another step back and we’re returned to pure abstraction. Everything is in focus and therefore unseeable. Subjects in Higgins’ work are repeated and lose their coherency, the same way that a common word, repeated for the millionth time, becomes absurd. There’s a joke here. But Higgins’ work argues that the joke is on all of us. As Goethe said, “Only everybody can know the truth.”
Recent solo exhibitions include My Salad Years: La Suite, Place des Vosges, Paris, 2023; My Salad Years, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2023; Lonesome, Tops Gallery, Memphis, 2022; and Flatfish, Hunter Shaw Fine Art, Los Angeles, 2020.
Recent group exhibitions include Trespass sweetly urged, Tanya Leighton, Berlin, 2024; Nián Nián: The Power and Agency of Animal Forms, Deji Art Museum, Nanjing, 2023; No Hard Place, Galerie Dengyun, Shanghai, 2022; and The Imaginary Sea, Villa Carmignac, Hyères, 2021.
Mixed greens and my dog, 2024. Oil on linen, 23 x 26 in (58.4 x 66 cm)
Father-in-law's house with yellow screwdriver, 2025. Oil on linen, 23 x 26 in (58.4 x 66 cm)
Father-in-law's house with yellow screwdriver, detail
Santa Barbara salad with sailboats, shrimp, and pecorino, 2025. Oil on linen, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.4 cm)
Installation image, Independent 2025, Chris Sharp Gallery, New York, 2025
Spinach salad with strawberries and my truck, 2024. Oil on linen, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.4 cm)
Santa Barbara salad with tomatoes, mozarella, and seagulls, 2025. Oil on canvas, 43 x 47 in (109.2 x 119.4 cm)
Memphis airport salad with tentacles, 2025. Oil on canvas, 43 x 47 in (109.2 x 119.4 cm)
Installation image, Independent 2025, Chris Sharp Gallery, New York, 2025
Mixed salad with Paris street and oysters, 2025. Oil on canvas, 48 x 60 in (121.9 x 152.4 cm)
Caesar salad with radishes, 2023. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.44 cm)
Caesar salad with radishes, detail
Installation image, My Salad Years: La Suite, Chris Sharp Gallery, Paris, 2023
Caesar salad with croutons, 2023. Oil on Canvas, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.44 cm)
Caesar salad with anchovies, 2023. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 48 x 57 in (121.92 x 144.78 cm)
Caesar salad with ice cubes, 2023. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 48 x 57 in (121.92 x 144.78 cm)
Caesar salad with ice cubes, detail
Caesar salad with squid and fly, 2023. Oil on Canvas, 48 x 57 in (121.92 x 144.78 cm)
Caesar salad with anchovy filets, 2022. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.44 cm)
Caesar salad with whole carrot, half an onion, and pile of salt, 2022. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.44 cm)
Installation image, My Salad Years, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2023
Caesar salad with flowers and crust of bread, 2022. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.44 cm)
Installation image, My Salad Years, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2023
Caesar salad with chicken and housefly, 2022. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 48 x 57 in (121.92 x 144.78 cm)
Installation image, My Salad Years, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2023
Caesar salad with whole anchovies, 2022. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.44 cm)
Caesar salad with gulf shrimp and red chard, 2022. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 60 x 72 in (152.4 x 182.88 cm)
Installation image, My Salad Years, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2023
Caesar salad with pecorino romano lump, 2022. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.44 cm)
dead seagull with live walleye surf perch, 2020. Oil on linen on panel, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.4 cm)
standard poodle, 2020. Oil on linen on panel, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.4 cm)
California Halibut on the rocks, 2019. Oil on canvas, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.4 cm)
RECENT EXHIBITIONS
Independent 2025
Chris Sharp Gallery, New York
Solo Booth
May 8 - 11, 2025
Trespass Sweetly Urged
Tanya Leighton, Berlin
Group Show
February 03 - March 23, 2024
My Salad Years: La Suite
Place des Vosges, Paris
Solo Show
October 16 - October 23, 2023
My Salad Years
Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles
Solo Show
December 10 - 2023 April 23, 2022