Adi Oren

Artist Statement of New Artist Adi Oren

Through my paintings, I explore what it means to be enraptured by existence, highlighting our desire to see, feel, and become. I make process-based figurative paintings that play with elements of intuitive expression. I work with acrylic and inks on canvas, integrating thick impasto, glazing, and dry-brush to create my multi-layered paintings. My work is characterized by vibrant, bold applications of color, and playful, gestural mark-making. At once fluid and structural, the physicality of paint continues to serve as a basis for my research. I drag my dry brush across the peaks and crevices of my layered paint, happily surprised by the nuances of time recorded. Like an archeologist uncovering hidden layers, I reveal the painting’s history through deliberate excavation, discovering nuances that speak to the passage of time and artistic decision-making.

My chromatic paintings are grounded in the abstract realm. Some of my works feature glimpses of figurative elements in motion, while others nod to the historical tradition of landscape painting. I harmonize colors to create the illusion of light and possibility. The interplay between chance and intention, materiality and surface, forms the cornerstone of my practice. This dialogue between the analytical and emotional aspects of creation open space for surprising discoveries. Within the structure of the conscious and the unconscious, I make work that celebrates freedom and the expansion of the senses, holding the process and the journey at the epicenter of my creations.  

Biography

Adi Oren (b. 1989, New York, NY) is a New York based painter whose practice celebrates freedom and the expansion of the senses, holding the process and the journey at the epicenter of her creations. Oren received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2011. Her work has been published in national publications such as Forbes and Artsy. Oren has participated in exhibitions along the East Coast at Kaliner Gallery (previously FORMah), New York, NY; Chashama, New York, NY; Contessa Gallery, Palm Beach, FL; and Gallerie 271, Monterey, MA, among others.

Oren was the Co-Chair of the Ellenville Arts Collective, where she extended her passion of the arts and understands the importance of bringing art to the community at large. During the summer of 2021 she painted a large-scale outdoor mural in the center of the Hudson Valley town, where her high diving figures have become an emblem of renewal and freedom. She maintains a studio practice in New York City and Ellenville, NY, where she lives with her husband and two children.