Fafnir Adamites, Situational Awareness, 2023 Cotton thread, reed
FAFNIR ADAMITES
Using basketry, weaving, papermaking, and other traditional fiber techniques, Fafnir Adamites creates sculptures as “monuments to, and reminders of, trauma, intuition, and the legacy of emotional turmoil inherited from past generations.” Using repetitious processes allows Adamites to simultaneously engage with the work physically and to meditate on the irresolvable concepts. The sculptures exhibited here are constructed with paper pulp, reed, and netting in a method that undermines the rigidity of the grids and highlights the transformative nature of the pulp. They act as abstract placeholders for the impossble-to-define nature of trauma.
Situational Awareness is a hand-woven waffle weave foundation disrupted by reed basket forms. Both weaving and basket are highly sculptural but work against each other’s inherent natures: soft and pliable vs. rigid and unyielding. The piercing forms introduce a new topography to the weaving – one that allows for an expansive understanding of opposing forces and the opportunities held within.
Fafnir Adamites holds an MFA degree from the Fiber and Material Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Photography and Women’s Studies from UMass Amherst. Fafnir is an Assistant Professor in the Fibers Area at California State University, Long Beach and has taught workshops and intensives at Arrowmont School of Art and Craft, Snow Farm: The New England Craft Program and Women’s Studio Workshop. Their work has been shown nationally, including a recent juried exhibition at Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles called “Tactics of Erasure and Rewriting Histories.” Fafnir has received several grants to support their exhibitions and studio practice and has been awarded residencies at MASS MoCA, Women’s Studio Workshop and Vermont Studio Center. They are a Board Member of the Surface Design Association and a member of North American Hand Papermakers.
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