JJ Adams

Interview with JJ Adams filmed back in 2016.

Taken from an interview in 2015 - "I love drawing and painting on canvas but I also love working digitally and with new mediums, the difference between traditional and digital art is that you don't have to wait for pixels to dry and layers can be independently adjusted, I try and fuse different mediums wherever I can, I mix my colour palette and take samples for my digital work or photograph my textures and objects to use in them, the more I can use that is real the more I feel that the piece starts to come alive"

"Someone said to me, You work digitally? which made me laugh, It takes just as long to create something digitally and there isn't a button you push that does everything for you. If I took a photograph and meticulously painted over it digitally does that make the photographic part of it void? Writing a book using Microsoft Word isn't cheating compared to writing by hand on paper, it’s just a different way of conveying a story, besides who determines how good something is based on the time taken to create it or how it's created, some of Picasso's sketches took seconds but you try and replicate one, it's not that easy, anyone can learn to draw or paint but it's how you use that knowledge and what you create".

"A lot of contemporary street artists use stencils created on a computer, we all use technology in some form. It's not all about the medium, it should be about the image, the idea, or the message. In my case, a lot of my messages are well hidden and I am not afraid to admit I use technology as one of my tools to express them, I embrace it"

"The key for me is not to take myself or my work too seriously,  just have fun creating and experimenting and ignore any criticism and keep your feet on the ground, otherwise it gets too complicated and it ruins your creativity, I create artwork for other people to enjoy, I have fun doing it and I don't attempt to save the world with a message that I don't truly believe. I donate to charities instead through the sale of my artwork who do know how to make a difference" - JJ Adams 2015

 JJ Adams is a mixed media artist from South West England and Cape Town, South Africa. He is of English, Scottish, and Portuguese descent, He is based just outside London in West Sussex.

"JJ Adams is the Frank Zappa of the UK Fine Art scene. I no longer walk past an art gallery without looking in, he's taken icons and buildings we know so well and added a drop of his brand of creative LSD".

Featured in Vogue & GQ and having worked alongside clients like Rolls Royce and Bang & Olufsen, JJ Adams has become one of the UK’s most talked about and collectible artists. He is bold and confident in style often completely transforming celebrity images or iconic landmarks with his inimitable edge and blurring the lines between new media, pop, fine art, digital art, and photography.

Outside of his gallery work, JJ has also curated and designed interiors and artworks for three central London restaurants and bars and has also been involved in raising money for numerous UK charities through the sale of his artwork. In 2014 a small 30x30cm painting sold at auction raising over £5000 for the Willow Foundation and in 2016 he raised over £3000 for the British Liver Trust when he released a portrait of David Bowie. He also auctioned his artwork in 2018 at the ‘Remembering Audrey Hepburn’ event in London with Audrey Hepburn’s son giving a talk about his mother’s humanitarian legacy and raising money for Lymphoma Action. During the Coronavirus lockdown in 2020, JJ created a piece of artwork that raised £13,000 for the NHS.

JJ Adams was a finalist for the 2016 Fine Art Trade Guild's "Best Selling Published Artist" Award and shortlisted for "Artist of the Year 2017" and was also a finalist for the 2019 ‘Most Popular Published Artist’ award.

The rebellious son of a Baptist preacher, JJ emigrated as a child from Plymouth in the UK to Cape Town in South Africa in the early eighties. He spent much of his youth around the studio of South African contemporary artist Derric van Rensburg, where he discovered his love of bright colour and graphic art. JJ studied graphic design at Cape College while working as a part-time apprentice at `Wildfire Tattoos` a busy tattoo studio in central Cape Town. JJ finally returned to the UK in the mid-nineties intending to become a tattoo artist.

After several years of living in London working in Camden Market and struggling to make ends meet, JJ moved back to Plymouth to further study commercial printing at the Plymouth College of Art and Design. Over the next several years he worked as a graphic designer and sign-maker in South West England while experimenting with art in his spare time. In 2009 after selling a few of his acrylic paintings through a local gallery he decided it was time to move back to London and finally pursue an art career. In early 2011, using the experience he had gained working in the tattoo industry, he produced a series of black-and-white tattooed images which set the ball rolling and the rest is history, his work can be found in galleries across the world.

Adams uses a range of new and mixed media in his work from spray painting to hand painting, airbrushing using acrylics, stenciling, screen printing, collage and digital composite and matte painting as well as photography and graffiti. He admits being influenced at art college by artists like Norman Rockwell, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Sir Peter Blake and illustration artists like Drew Struzan, John Alvin, Guy Peelleart, Storm Thorgerson, and lowbrow artists like Coop and Jim Phillips.

JJ Adams works from his art studio in West Sussex. He is married and has five children and two dogs.

When he is not creating artwork, he can be found attending Comic-Conventions or playing Dungeons & Dragons, he also enjoys traveling in his VW campervan.