Adele Warner

Adele Warner’s practice articulates a derealized perspective of urban pessimism. Her experiences of untethering and dislocation within metropolitan life inform her explorations of social alienation, estrangement, and feminine identity. Quoting historical techniques and styles of the Western painterly canon, Warner redeploys them to meditate on the social realities of contemporary life. These techniques are contrasted by references to new developments in methods of painting, including media manipulation and digital collage. Imagery patched together from personal photography and the boundless depths of digital repositories such as Reddit, Wikimedia Commons and Instagram recalls the absurdist sensibilities of Dada. Rendered in oil, they fashion a self-portrait of the zeitgeist of the digital age. In merging classical painting techniques with contemporary digital influences, Warner creates a dialogue between the present and a pre-internet past, investigating a disassociation from identity, community and purpose. Her works display an introspective longing for connection and meaning by depicting cultural and communal sites, including the home and places of Christian worship. Paintings become glimpses of memories from an unspecified past, evoking a universal sense of nostalgia, while alluding to associated feelings of warmth and security. In revisiting these scenes, they are rendered both familiar and unfamiliar, refusing audiences comfort. These scenes exhibit an unheimlich (uncanny, cold, and strange) quality, repelling viewers with the same force that drives them to seek comfort in kinship.

Warner’s oeuvre examines disconnection within the context of contemporary urban life and digital culture. Her paintings, imbued with both personal and universal significance, invite viewers to reflect on their own experiences of disconnection from culture and the deterioration of the social fabric of communities. Through this synthesis of old and new, Warner poses questions about identity and the search for meaning in a rapidly changing world, providing a contemplative space for introspection.