A brush with... Igshaan Adams

Igshaan Adams talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Adams, born in 1982, who explores human space, both interior and exterior, and how that space speaks to racial, sexual and historical identities. Working in particular with wall and floor-based textiles, and sculpture, often brought together in atmospheric installations, Adams does not depict people but evokes their presence. He particularly refers to the community in which he was born and grew up in South Africa, Bonteheuwel near Cape Town, and suggests the marks people have made in that environment. They range from the traces on domestic floors to so-called “desire lines”, pathways forged in landscapes and cityscapes that reveal how we subvert the structures put in place to control and surveil us, and thus act as everyday gestures of resistance. Adams’s art is based on research but also deeply informed by his own story, as a mixed-race, queer man. Though referencing great difficulty and hardship, his is a language of unashamed beauty and elegance. In the podcast, he reflects on his curiosity about traces of human activity, his embrace of beauty, his longstanding engagement with Sufism, and the influence of the South African artists Nandipha Mntambo and Nicholas Hlobo, the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois and the love poems of Rumi. He gives insight into life in his studio in Cape Town, and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?

Igshaan Adams: Weerhoud, The Hepworth Wakefield, UK, 22 June-3 November; Igshaan Adams, ICA/Boston, US, until 15 February 2025;Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, 14 September-5 January, 2025