Adrian Coleman (b. 1984) makes paintings of solitary fgures depicted within austere urban settings. His work considers a fraught relationship to geography, to feel of and outside a place at once. While living in London between 2017 and 2021, Coleman assumed the paradoxical identity of being both native and foreign. He had been born in Britain to a multi-ethnic family but grew up in the United States. Against the backdrop of Brexit, Trump, and the Coronavirus, the themes of be-longing and estrangement resonated personally. His 2021 solo exhibition was titled “Citizens of Nowhere,” in reference to Theresa May’s infamous comment about people with complex backgrounds.

Since returning to New York in the same year, Coleman’s work is more pointedly about the limbo of existing between worlds. His latest bifurcated series includes watercolors of Brixton, South London and oil paintings of Gowanus, Brooklyn, both neighborhoods where he has lived and painted. The paintings are an ambivalent meditation on home, both the home that one resides in but also the home that one recalls. Simultaneously, the motifs of shuttered storefronts, desolate streets, and masked individuals recur frequently. The paintings are a plague tableau. In their confation of London and New York, they are also a record of an embattled West.

Coleman studied painting and architecture at Yale University (BA, 2006) and received his masters degree from Columbia (M.Arch., 2012). Coleman is a winner of the 2012 Brooklyn Museum GO Open Studio Competition. He appeared in the Bronx Museum's 2015 Biennial and BRIC's 2016 Brooklyn Biennial. In 2017, Steven Amedee Gallery in Manhattan presented a solo exhibition of his work. In London, Coleman has participated in group exhibitions at the Mall Galleries, Peckham Levels, and the Willis Museum. In 2020, Adrian was awarded the Hopper Prize. In 2021, his show “Citizens of Nowhere” appeared at Taymour Grahne projects in London.