Leslie Adams

Leslie Adams, a Signature Status Member of the Portrait Society of America and graduate of the prestigious New York Academy of Art, is an internationally recognized artist specializing in narrative art and portraiture. Her patrons include many distinguished members of private society as well as the corporate, academic, religious, cultural, judicial and civic leaders of our day. Adams' works have received awards from institutions including the American Society of Portrait Artists Foundation, the New York Academy of Art, and the Portrait Society of America where she received the William F. Draper Grand Prize for "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl" - the first of its kind given to a drawing. Her works have been exhibited in the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, the Butler Institute of American Art, Salmagundi Club, Art Renewal Center’s International ARC Salon, and European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona. She is represented in the permanent collections of the Toledo Museum of Art, the Ella Sharp Museum of Art, the Academy of Achievement, and numerous institutions throughout the world. Following the success of her major solo exhibition, Leslie Adams, Drawn from Life, part of the Toledo Museum of Art’s 2013 Fall Season of Portraiture, she began work on The Handwritten Dreams Project which was first exhibited during ArtPrize Nine at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum before traveling throughout the United States. She is currently completing new works for her next solo exhibition, Leslie Adams, The Measure of a Life. 

All works entered in the ARC Salon this year and last are part of The Handwritten Dreams Project. Her passion. She writes, “Drawing is my first love, but I’m infatuated with cursive - with signatures, poetry, and long letters from friends - anything written in one’s own hand. And, I love dreams. I love the dreamers of dreams. A self-portrait, Handwritten Dreams celebrates the hopes and aspirations that we, as children and adults, universally share. It is a drawing, installation, and interactive work that provides the space and time where viewers can pause, reflect, and write their own dreams on paper. Each then pins their hopes to an endlessly growing 'wall of dreams' in the symbolically staged 1970’s classroom that I remember as a child. For as a young school girl I was taught to be curious, inspired to dream, and encouraged to record my dreams in perfect penmanship. It made them real. I am so fortunate that my dream of becoming an artist came true, and my goal as an artist is to inspire others to believe in possibility. Reflecting on the great cursive debate confronting today’s society, Handwritten Dreams seamlessly marries the elegance and beauty of line found in both cursive and drawing with the very marks that are the expressions of our individuality and pure imagination.”  

* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 14^th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.