Adrienne Roma Sacks
was born in 1994 in Phoenix, Arizona and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is an interdisciplinary artist with a Bachelor of Arts in Clinical Psychology and Studio Art from Tufts University and a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from California State University, Northridge (CSUN), where she was the recipient of a Juror’s Choice Award and a first place award in graduate research across the university for her thesis project concerning anthropomorphism, aesthetic categories, and capitalism. She was the 2019 recipient of the National Annual Award from Collage Artists of America for her work in assemblage sculpture. She has exhibited her work at museums including Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute, Torrance Art Museum, and Millard Sheets Art Center as well as in galleries and artist-run spaces nationally. She has taught at CSUN, CSSSA at CalArts, and Pratt Munson in two-dimensional design, painting, exhibition design, and aesthetics. Her work has been published in Forever Magazine. She was an artist-in-residence at Dorland Mountain Arts in Temecula, California, El Sur in CDMX, Mexico, and Fish Factory in Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland. She is currently pursuing a Master of Social Work from Simmons University, where she was awarded a McGrath Global & Intercultural Research Grant.
Read more about my current interests and contact me.
Research Log
summer 2024: work histories, interviewing and oral history, Iceland, wildflowers, crafting, murals, functional ceramics
early 2024: man-made landscapes, skateparks, bridges, theme parks, Las Vegas, rollercoasters
fall 2023: psychoanalysis, illustration, hard edge abstraction, pattern and decoration, animals, folktales, fairytales, fables, myths
summer 2023: fairytales, folklore, the enchanted rose in Beauty and the Beast, realism, oil paint, “prep”, glowing
spring 2023 - deserts, Prussian Blue
late 2022 - winter 2023: paint, acrylic gel, glitter, Canal Plastics, the sky, purging
mid 2022: “Why did the chicken cross the road?”, aluminum, trees/wood, gel, microplastics, droplets, White-tailed deer, jumbo stuffed animals, Depop, eroticism, memoir, Y2K graphic tees, the censored, the pornographic, the explicit, the taboo, roadkill
late 2021: porcelain dolls, mall culture, internet aesthetics, endangered animals, clouds
spring 2021: installation, site, Frankenstein, viewership
fall 2020: pattern and decoration, glitter, clouds
summer 2020: psychological space, cultural landscape, resistance, dichotomies, binaries, spectrums, contrast, social justice, community organizing, rest
early 2020: masks, costumes, disguises, theater, performance, mannequins, stand-ins, Rising signs
late 2019: unicorns, rainbows, butterflies, Renaissance Equestrian Battle Paintings, The Aurora Borealis, ocean currents, stuffed animals, Fashion, cute vs. camp, the spectacle
mid 2019: affect theory, optimism, rainbows, unicorns, glitter, mermaids, magic, flower shops, cemeteries, grief, loss, memorials, monuments, sentimentality, nostalgia, cultural memory
early 2019: roadside memorials, neon & metallic color, the dollar store
late 2018: freedom, fantasy, failure, kitsch, sentimentality
early 2018: nature as refuge, spiritual architecture, new age spirituality, digital culture, ghosts, emojis
summer 2017: modern crafting material, hangings, storytelling
spring 2017: hidden feelings & intentions, language as symbol, disparity in mental presence & physical presence
early 2017: memories and fantasies, site-specific architecture, youth culture
winter 2016: documenting, zooming in/out, abstraction
fall 2016: accessibility to space, luxury products and lifestyles (and conversely, recycling), shrines, child development justice, nostalgia, and obituaries
Statement
My multidisciplinary practice explores visual culture: the aesthetic interplay between the personal and the collective.
Rooted in both natural and man-made landscapes, my visual research extends from skies and mountains to theme parks and malls. The math between the organic and the synthetic often yields abstract solutions that reflect both reality and fantasy.
I apply psychoanalytic inquiry to my explorations of cultural memory, mining the personal visual motifs of my childhood. Rainbows, fairytales, and Y2K aesthetics create a space where the magical and the commercial coexist, evoking simultaneous sentimentality and critical reflection.
The physicality of contemporary materials like aluminum, acrylic gels, and glitter allows me to explore contrasts between the new and the old, most often within the historical context of painting.
Recently, I have been interested in engaging with the public spaces that inspire much of my work, transforming walls of post-industrial exteriors and institutional interiors into sites of beauty.