Nigel Adams Artist

a large mixed media collage painting featuring famous movie stars, stripped of their identity in chaotic abstract paintwork. I am fascinated by social hierarchy and celebrity in the spectacular world.

An alien examining human history books would conclude that when it comes to groups of humans resolving their differences, killing each other was the only option. Of course, mainstream history is largely recorded by violent people who profit from perpetuating a war culture. "War is the answer" is therefore the rhetoric of cowards and liars.

I am using the children's game of making paper chains of people by folding and cutting paper. I find this a good vehicle for contrasting how each individual experiences their own life and how lives are treated on a national and industrial level. I have taken this idea further to explore iconography and celebrity.

I have suffered a lot of mental distress in my life and been hospitalised several times. I use derogatory terms like "mental" instead of the official psychiatric ones to take my power back. One of the banes of my early life was Margaret Thatcher. Years later I met her briefly in Chelsea and felt only pity for what she had become. She was already in Hell.

I'm autistic. I found this out at age 52 and am exploring what that means to me and how I can express this in my work and communicate with others in a helpful way "to educate, entertain and inform" them, as the BBC charter might say, if anyone still believed that.

connecting with other people is a fraught business, even connecting with ourselves can be stressful. We risk destruction at the hands of others and destroy ourselves trying to be happy. Autism makes every simple interaction a challenge.

we are surrounded by images, by ideology, brands. Brands are everywhere. Everything is presented through the fairground mirrors of celebrity and dramatisation. A "brand" was the scorched iron scar burned into the flanks of cattle and slaves, denoting ownership by the rich. Just saying.

A mixed media collage painting about the contradictory, confusing nihilistic structure of life in the mediaverse. It is my attempt to answer the question, "how did we get in such a mess?" without being specific at all.

ideology and identity are central to much of my work. I naturally identify as an outsider because of my neurodivergence - everyday transactions and interactions are things I have to think about constantly. I will always be a foreigner whatever flag I happen to be living under.