Adam Handler, born in New York in 1986, spent countless hours during his teenage years in his grandparents' frame factory in Brooklyn, where he grew up and developed his passion for art. This exhibition is very special to him, as the title "For You" is in honor of his grandfather, who passed away 9 years ago and who played a very important role in shaping the artist's attitudes and the importance of art in the world. Adam Handler's art has always been introspective and personal, so he wanted to present this exhibition as a show that his grandfather would have been proud of.

This exhibition is very special to him, as the title "For You" is in honor of his grandfather, who passed away 9 years ago and who played a very important role in shaping the artist's attitudes and the importance of art in the world

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1. How did you develop your own painting style?

I don't think I could have come to this style of painting If I didn't experience or experiment really with all other styles. Most of my 20s were just experimenting. Experimenting with soft sculpture, conceptual art, minimalism, abstraction, realism. I started off as a realist painter and all those years of experimenting really helped me to develop the style that I have now, which is recognizable as my work.

"I started off as a realist painter and all those years of experimenting really helped me to develop the style that I have now, which is recognizable as my work"

2. Which material do you use when creating a painting?

A lot of times I tell people I'm not a painter, I am a drawer. I don't really use brushes. I take an oil stick and I sketch and draw and doodle, and that's how the paintings are created, which gives them that very specific look. But the oil stick, how I started using them, must have been in my early 20s when I first started looking at the work of Basquiat and the way he would write all his sayings or poems, they were all in oil stick, so I was very inspired by that. 

"When I started using the oil stick, what I liked about the medium is that it lacks perfection, meaning I could never get that perfect straight line, everything was a little rough and that was what attracted me, because my paintings are not about perfection"

3. Could you tell us about the ghosts in your artwork?

I started creating this ghost character as a way to confront death, but in a friendly way. The ghosts are not meant to be demons, they´re meant to comfort. And for me, the ghost was just that. I painted them to help me get out of this anxiety, or at least try. To this day I still continue to work with the ghost, and the ghost has almost become a memento mori, a remembrance that you are gonna die, in turn, let's remember to live.

4. Why did you choose "For You" as the title for this exhibition?

So, this exhibition is titled “For you”, and when thinking about the paintings that I wanted to display in my first solo show at Villazan, I kept coming back to my grandfather. This solo exhibition, I felt that I wanted it to be almost like a mini retrospective, a mini summary of my last ten, eleven years painting and I wanted it dedicated to him. 

This solo exhibition, I felt that I wanted it to be almost like a mini retrospective, a mini summary of my last ten, eleven years painting and I wanted it dedicated to him