Midnight Ghost Abduction is a unique painting from the series of Ghost Paintings by the American painter Adam Handler.

New York-based artist Adam Handler’s signature ghost paintings bring together Handler’s arsenal of iconic phantom characters alongside new faces to address his recurring interest in mortality and how to cope with fearing loss. Coming together to depict a brilliantly saturated universe, these paintings collectively and kindly offer a whimsical mediation on the transience of life.

His Ghost Paintings unfold the virtuosity of the artist. Composed with the multi-colored acrylic paints and oil sticks that are characteristic to the artist’s uniquely vibrant universe, these works evolved out of earlier series of friendly wide-eyed ghosts and abstract girls. For this exhibition, his images of ghosts are introduced to new monsters and explore boldly hued backdrops of starbursts, UFO’s, rain, polkadots, drips of paint, and wild flora. In these new works, Handler pushes the emotions of his figures both metaphorically and physically. Whether standing alone or paired with companions, as in some of his larger paintings, these warmly nostalgic figures have evolved to speak to communities and individuals caught in the midst of uncertain times. Cheekily depicted wolves and monsters, pineapples, rain showers, galaxies, and brightly accessorized girls all come together in sweeping gestural marks of oilstick.

Adam Handler – internationally acclaimed Painter

Adam Handler, born in 1986 studied “Life Drawing” in Italy and received a degree from Purchase College in New York. He also studied craft design with Jorge Nieves and color photography with Debra Mesa-Pelly. Adam Handler’s work has been exhibited in New York, Greenwich CT, Canada and Texas. Childlike simplicity, quirky, colorful, primitive – these are just a few words to describe the extraordinary talent of New York born painter Adam Handler. His recognizable figures, such as bats, ghosts, and wide-eyed girls, embody an innocence and youthful energy that even the best artists would say is nearly impossible to render with fresh authenticity. Pablo Picasso said it best, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

Using acrylic paint, oil pastels, pencil and markers, Adam Handler’s childlike and passionate drawing technique creates distinct, contoured characters that appear almost flat, with little to no depth of field. The backgrounds of his works are highly detailed but rough, energetically drawn with scratches and marks that seem to spill over the edge of the canvas, giving a hasty and improvised feel. The work of Willem De Kooning helped Adam Handler have an aha moment: a figure doesn’t have to look like a figure, but can reflect the characteristics of a figure. Handler’s large-scale, imaginative figures connect the viewer with a sense of warm nostalgia or even a memory of days long past. In 2023 the painting “Ghost Buddy Abduction in the Swirling Haze of Night” sold very well at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong in the Contemporary Curated: Hong Kong Sale.A new solo show in asia is also in the making for 2024.