

Traditionally, Middle Eastern portraiture has been concerned with the aggrandizement or idealization of the subject, and has been liberally used as a tool for propaganda by the imperial regime. Here Adam radically inverts the convention, choosing to depict the ugly and diminished. By draping his creatures in scarlet robes, or gold and sequins – as he so often does – hiding the misshapen form behind grand accoutrements, the artist comments on man’s superficial nature, the true self is so often concealed behind a misleading façade.
Whether these beasts appear malformed or transformed to the viewer, by forcing us to question our preconceptions of beauty and our temporary body with all the entails, Adam obliges us to question our own spiritual, individual and cultural identity.



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