April 26 – May 15, 2018

China_AdamsPorch Gallery Ojai presents China Adams: Massage-Generated Energy Drawings. Beginning on April 26th, 2018 China Adams, artist and California Licensed Massage Therapist, will launch a large-scale, collaboration with 80 other artists that will run through May 15th, 2018. The project, Massage-Generated Energy Drawings, represents her continued commitment to the exploration of positive energy and healing touch as artistic mediums.

Her interest in cultivating positive energy and healing touch as art mediums is driven by three aims. First, Adams is constantly striving to minimize the physical matter created in her art making process. Second, Adams believes that positive energy can be generated, through various forms of meditation and healing touch with the goal being enhanced quality of life, both in the immediate and in the long-term on an individual and global scale. Third, Adams believes the next frontier in art making is to deem energy as an art medium, recognized institutionally as a legitimate mode of creative expression.

Each day Adams will perform four, hour-long massages on participating artist-collaborators. Adams will work in conjunction with a bell steward. The job of the bell steward will be to randomly ring a bell three times during each massage session. At the sound of the bell, the massage recipient will be asked to immediately vocalize the first word that comes to his/her mind. The bell steward will keep a log of the three words collected during each session. At the end of each day, Adams will compile the 12 words and incorporate them into a drawing that includes all of the day’s words. She will work on the drawings during the evening in the gallery space.

Each day’s rolling collaboration on the massage table will provide the subject matter for the day’s drawings. In the spirit of Dada-esque poetry (relying on the randomnesss and potential synchronicities manifesting in the word collection) Adams’ aim is to create a series of drawings that reflect the essence of the collaboration/energy exchange between Adams and the artists receiving her massages. With the goal being to provide relaxation, relief, and pleasure through her massages, Adams anticipates that the collected words may reflect an uplifted Gestalt that characterizes the entire project.

In keeping with Adams’ tradition of implementing notarization in her work, Heather Stobo, gallerist and Notary Public, on behlaf of the State of California, will be notarizing the completed drawings to ensure authentication of the drawings and identity of the participating artists.

Any sales of drawings will be split between the gallery, Adams and the artist-participants whose words were included in the drawing being sold.

Born in 1970 in San Francisco, China Adams has lived in Los Angeles for over twenty years. She earned a BFA from UCLA (1995) and an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (2000). She has been featured in exhibitions around the world, including several solo shows at Ace Gallery, Los Angeles and Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles. Adams makes conceptual art works in a range of media.