Artist Bio

Nigel Adams was born in London in 1966 and is a self-taught artist.

During the mid-1990s, he had a breakdown and was given antidepressants which he reacted badly to. He was admitted to psychiatric wards several times and given more psychiatric drugs, eventually being sectioned under the Mental Health Act. He was diagnosed with 'bipolar affective disorder' and discharged with the expectation that he would remain medicated for the rest of his life.

Nigel disputed this diagnosis, broke off from psychiatric services and stopped taking all prescribed medication. He has had no recurrence of the symptoms he experienced whilst being 'treated' and in 2019 he was correctly diagnosed as having an autism spectrum condition.

These experiences have radically informed the content and direction of his work which explores themes of neuro/mental divergence, human behaviour, identity, power, psychology and more.

His drawing style originated from childhood exposure to comic books, newspaper cartoons and illustrated books, which he copied stylistically to learn about line work. He did the same thing with colour illustration and fine art, then comedy, poetry, film making and physical performance. He continues to explore and map different creative methods and experiments constantly, absorbing everything he learns into a constantly evolving art practice.

He held his first solo exhibition, "Hysterical Fabrications" at Nucleus Art Centre's Halpern Gallery in Chatham in 2010 and has gone on to sell his work globally via the internet. He continues to exhibit work locally, most recently "Born Wrong" - a joint exhibition with Ashley Reaks in 2019 and in 2020 contributed work to the "Art in Lockdown" exhibition at the Rochester Art Gallery.

Nigel illustrated and published Disposable Shaman, his first collection of writing, in 2016 (available to buy from lulu.com at the link below)

He makes art and writes every day.