TURN THE NEGATIVE INTO POSITIVE:
an interview with Antonio Adams

by Visionaries + Voices Co-founder Keith Banner

Born in Cincinnati in 1981, Antonio Adams has been drawing, painting and creating since he was a little boy. Now his work is collected nationally, and he has been featured in newspaper articles and television news stories. He is one of the co-founders of Visionaries + Voices, an arts organization for artists with disabilities in Cincinnati, Ohio. His statues, paintings and drawings have been featured at The Contemporary Art Center (Cincinnati, Ohio), The Cincinnati Art Museum, Base Gallery, Visionaries & Voices, the Pittsburgh Folk Art Exhibit and Symposium, the Outsider Art Fair in New York City, Middletown Fine Arts Center, Fitton Center for Creative Arts (Hamilton, Ohio), University of Cincinnati Medical Library, and In the Gallery (Nashville, Tennessee).

Antonio’s work over the years has evolved into a more sophisticated and spiritualized version of what he first started to make back when he was nineteen years old in 1999. During that phase, when he was just out of high school, Antonio took pieces of wood, glued them together into Egyptian-cat formations, and decorated them with construction-paper and glue, naming each “cat” after people he came across. These works are now in collections across the region. In 2008, for his exhibit, “Turn the Negative into Positive,” Antonio, at 27, has returned to his roots, fashioning another series of cats. This time though they have an even more poignant and philosophical meaning (read the interview below). And along with these sculptures, he has created a corresponding suite of beautiful paintings narrating a battle between negative and positive forces.

Antonio has mentioned that Prince is an inspiration specific to this exhibit, and what better mentor? Prince began his career in a basement in Minneapolis, mixing his own songbook, and unleashed from this isolation music and ideas that altered the universe. As well, Prince merged a love for God with a love for the ladies, creating an overall spiritual acrobatics, with a jacked-up soundtrack full of Jimi-Hendrix histrionics and Joni-Mitchell soul. In much the same manner, Antonio creates his own iconography and universe in “Turn the Negative into Positive.” The paintings and sculptures in this exhibit are like pop songs sprouting from Psalms, with a little funk and fury thrown in. They are about redemption and beauty, and how art is the sometimes only alchemy. Antonio seems to understand instinctively that the main salvation is often that of an aesthetic kind: the greatness you create when no one else is looking, the beauty you show the world after you figure some things out.

These new works are the next level in Antonio’s brilliant career.

I spoke with Antonio at the Visionaries + Voices’ studio on June 14, 2008.

Why did you make the sculptures? Because I bring these people back to their new life form. Focus on the positive things instead of negative things. I started on Jon Benet Ramsay first. She was a beauty queen child and then she got killed in her own home. Back in 1995. And that was a negative thing. I turned her into a sculpture to brighten things up a little and to give her a new life. That's positive. Back in 1955 Emmet Till got killed by those two white guys. Emmett was from Chicago. He was 13. Emmet was black and not white, and the people who killed him were not black but white, and in my sculpture of him I give his life a different blue color. After he got killed then people or someone find his body at the Mississippi River. They got his body back, and three days later they decided to take it up to Chicago in a funeral home, where his mom take photos of him. The whole world look at him to see what had been done to him. His face been disfigured. In my sculpture his face is not disfigured. It is a makeover I did. He is happy now. I also did a sculpture of Marcus Feisel. He was a three-year-old boy who was put in a closet where he got taped up. Then his foster people burned his body after they put him up to the chimney, and then he died. His foster people did that to him. When I made him, I was thinking I was going to give him his own familiar face back. Laci Peterson was pregnant when she was killed by her own husband Scott. I make her look beautiful and unique now.

What are your paintings about? They are about turning negative into positive. At the beginning, the first one I did was “Face All Those Problems.” With some people at war and all them bad things going on out there, you need to know the truth about the problems, and when the bad guys kill the good guys you need to make a change. Kids holding hands and God and Jesus have been there to stop the war and stop the problems. The second one, “Turn Negative into a Positive (Learn about Those Mistakes Had Been Made (2),” the bad side is a stupid demon still wanting to go to war
after Jesus; then Jesus will stop the demon and that's the way it works.

Why do you use the colors you use? I decide to do decent colors. I make the colors up on my own. The darkness and the brightness need each other. And also I decide to use fluorescent green because
I usually brighten things up with the white paint, and then I end up with red fluorescent and the green fluorescent – it means bring on the positive energy.

Do you have a favorite painting in this show? “Turn the Negative into Positive (4)” is my favorite.

Why? I was imagining things between a Satan and a Jesus, then the Satan go after the
Jesus and Jesus spray Satan with a fire extinguisher. It’s funny.

Who is Raymond Thunder-Sky? He was a clown artist of heavy duty worker in Cincinnati. He was walking around downtown drawing pictures of building being torn down and construction sites. I was inspired by Raymond very much. He was a clown and I am a Kingdom Master. He died in 2004 and I want to remember him in my art.

How long have you been making art? Back when I was about nine I learned about art. A teacher in my elementary school was very nice and showed me. Then a few year later, when I was eleven years old, I was living with my mom at Winton Terrace, and then I draw on the wall with crayons, and then when my mom came and saw me she kind of liked it but she was mad. And another few years later, when I was fifteen years old, I went to a high school, Hughes High School, and I went to the art class and ended up doing some wooden sculptures of cats, and then I draw portraits of students and teachers. And then another few years later I had my first art show at the Base Gallery with Raymond Thunder-Sky, Paul Rowland, and Richard Brown. We decided to bring art to people at Base Art Gallery and to have a party. When I worked at Artworks Summer program back in 2000, Tamara Harkavy was an executive director from Artworks; then Colleen Stanton was a program director and Pam Kravetz was a teaching staff. They hire me to work with the Artworks kids, and then years later, in 2005 I end up taking photos of ladies after I dressed them up, so they can become a Junior Spice. V+V is like that for people.

What does Visionaries & Voices mean to you? The favorite thing I like about V+V is doing some drawings, doing some photography, some jewelry, painting, and wooden sculpture. My favorite people are here. Michael Weber. He is an excitement guy here. Also I kind of like Kevin White because he is kind and quiet without making noise -- serious and shy. I kind of like everybody. John Luke is a teenage young dude. Like Courttney Cooper -- he is very smart and knows all of downtown Cincinnati. Isaiah Newberry too. He looks like he is related to Stevie Wonder. Christina Fogle was very nice and gentle. I like Jan Hermans. She is a very funny person who cares a lot. I like Jennifer Hershey, Jennifer Klein -- all the people. Ashley too. Bill Ross is a worry person, and he helps me. He got everything straightened out to help me out to be able to make the art in this show. I thank him for that.

Anything else about your show? We can make the positive things happen in this world. I'm showing you how. We got to go back in time to face all those problems, know the truth, learn about those mistakes, and fix things that have been broken.

Visionaries + Voices (V+V) is a non-profit arts organization created for artists with disabilities to succeed using art as a foundation for expression, education and inclusion. Our vision is that artists with disabilities are valued members of their communities, and that they have opportunities for continuous collaboration, creativity, learning, and fun. The mission of V +V is to provide artistic and cultural opportunities for artists with disabilities. We value a world in which artists with disabilities not only create and share their works of art, but also are given the chance to learn, work, collaborate, and celebrate with other community members.

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