Painter Lindsay Adams approaches abstraction as both a formal language and philosophical framework. Her practice is akin to musical composition; each mark functions like a note, colors melding to create harmonies and melodies. Drawing from Black cultural and literary traditions, Lindsay’s luminous canvases explore memory, migration, ancestry, and the many emotional realities that shape the human experience.

In this episode, Elodie sits down with Lindsay to discuss her most recent exhibition SOIL at Sean Kelly Gallery, leaving the traditional workforce to pursue art, living with cerebral palsy, and the role research plays in her practice.

A conversation on Blackness and abstraction, disability, and artistic reinvention.

03:12 — Lindsay’s first meaningful art experience

08:47 — Transitioning from corporate work to art

19:33 — Lindsay’s influences

23:05 — SOIL at Sean Kelly Gallery

37:07 — On living with cerebral palsy

43:14 — On Weary Blues, Lindsay’s commission for the Obama Presidential Center

47:00 — Lindsay’s reading recommendations

Lindsay Adams is a writer and painter working across traditional mediums. Lindsay received her B.A.s in both International Studies: World Politics and Diplomacy and Spanish from the University of Richmond and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been the recipient of the Helen Frankenthaler Award (2024) and the New Artist Society Merit Award (2023). Her work has been exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C., and is included in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art and Northwestern Law School. A 2025-2026 artist-in-residence at the World Trade Center through Silver Art Projects, Lindsay was commissioned to produce a site-specific work for the Obama Presidential Center, which opened in June 2026.

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